 Welcome to Burns Library, the Special Collections Library at Boston College. Today I'll be showing you how to analyze historical map, looking at both the physical features on the map as well as its content. Think about the message a map is conveying and how it could be useful to your research. But remember, if you have questions or want to find out more about maps available at Burns Library, you can always contact us for help. Let's start with this map. It looks like this map has a title box, so I'm going to start there. This is Africa described, the manage of their habits and buildings newly done in English by IS, are to be sold by the Bassett and Fleet Street and Richard Chiswell in St. Paul's Churchyard. This tells me the title and the location of the shops, which makes me think this was created in London. I don't see any dates or full author name besides IS, but I could try to use the shop names to come up with tentative date of when they were active. However, I know this map is from Boston College, so I'm going to look it up in the library database to see what metadata is associated with this map that can tell me more. If this map was part of an online database, like the David Rumsey map collection, I'd check there to see if they have included more information on the map. So the database entry for the map has more details that can help. It looks like they think this map is from 1676 and was by John Speed. So likely the IS I saw is really a JS. It was engraved by Abraham Goose, who was also listed at the very bottom of the map. The map itself is just loose, but looking at the database entry, it was originally included in a book called Theater of the Empire of Great Britain, together with a prospect of the most famous part of the world by John Speed, that was published in 1676. I bet that's where they got the date for this map then. That book title also gives me some context of the purpose of the map that I can keep in mind as I look at it further. Based on the title and the publication place, I'm already gonna guess it from an English perspective. The illustrations around the map definitely reinforce the idea that this isn't from an African perspective. And if I look at the place names used, they also show a very English perspective. The Ottoman Empire is not mentioned here at all. The map is mostly noting political boundaries, though once again, I'm questioning the names and boundaries used, which definitely have a bias. The Islet of Tunis is just part of Barbary on here. And major landforms, mountains and bodies of water. The illustrations throughout the map and around the border tell me this is meant to be entertaining. So likely an illustration in the so-called exotic places far away from the British Empire. The map is centered on the continent of Africa. No legend is given with the projection and scale, though that could have been in this rounded book text. However, that does reinforce the idea that this isn't a map for actual navigation or strict accuracy. I keep noticing the illustrations on the map. The animals are really interesting. It's emphasizing, look at these exotic creatures you might find here, rather than anything about the navigation, natural resources, political or military importance or culture of the areas. It also really emphasizes names, saying not only what they consider the current place names, but also occasionally the older place names. The outer border attempts to depict various people to live within Africa. I don't have enough historical or cultural knowledge to know how accurately any of these figures are depicted. However, this goes along with the animals and the emphasis of the strange and alien to British readers from the map. The peoples, animals, even the likely inaccurate cities at the top of the map are all supposed to allow British readers to armchair travel and wonder if one strange and daring place to Africa might be. I'd expect a very, very different emphasis if this was created by someone who actually lived here and wanted to get around, even to understand the political complexities of the area. Political boundaries for one, where do each of these names of the maps start and stop? Natural resources, if I was a trading company or an empire of the time who was interested in whether or not I wanted to start trading or invading the area, this map doesn't tell me anything about what I might find. Wind currents and other features that might help me sail to Africa or navigate the rivers are all missing. As I keep on mentioning with the names, I'm deeply suspicious if these names are what the people who live in these areas call their cities and countries. Putting this all together then, I can say this is a British map of Africa made for presumably British audience who are just generally curious about the world beyond Great Britain. It emphasizes curiosity and stereotypes over actual practical information about the political or geographical features of the area. While I'm slightly doubtful about its accuracy at portraying how the peoples of nations in Africa describe and organize themselves, it is really helpful and research projects for how the British were seeing and describing the area in the 1670s. I could compare this with other maps from non-British map makers or my general historical knowledge of the area to discuss the differences. I could pair this map with the type of British travel accounts the map was once a part of to discuss British fascinations or lack thereof with the Ottoman Empire and the cultures within it. Or I could try to find other British maps to the Ottoman Empire during this time period to think about whether they were all for the general public or if other types of maps and questions existed in the British public about this region. This map, like most maps, has a lot of different research potentials in areas of further exploration.