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Geographical Research

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46(2):237–244

© 2008 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2008 Institute of Australian Geographers

Map-Making, Landscapes and Memory: AGeography of Colonial and Early ModernIreland, c.1530–1750

William J. Smyth, Cork University Press, Cork,2006, xxiii + 584 pp, ISBN 1 859 18397 2(hardback) £49.

This is a remarkable book, which has receivedan award from the American Conference forIrish Studies. It is a work of outstanding scholar-ship, and the result of painstaking research; it isexquisitely produced, and makes a substantialcontribution, offering many new ideas.

The publishers describe the work as ‘the firstengagement in one book by a geographer withthe most formative and revolutionary period inIreland’s history’. The author seeks to document,through maps, published and unpublished, thestory of the colonisation and transformation ofIreland’s landscape and society by the ‘NewEnglish’ and ‘Scottish’ settlers. The point ofview is clearly stated. The book opens with thesentence:

The New English colonization of Irelandfrom the 1530s onward may be seen as theequivalent of a major continental invasionthat transformed the island from Malin Headto Rosslare and from Fair Head to Cape Clear.

And toward the end of the book the author writes:

Ireland . . . saw the commodification of itslands – valued places were transformed intogeometric chess pieces to be traded likestocks and shares. It saw too the erosion ofexisting complex ecologies, not least thedestruction and asset-stripping of its exten-sive woodlands; and the growth of vulnerableforms of monoculture.

Yet despite the occasional use of somewhatemotive language, the author argues from a mas-sive factual base. And he seeks ‘to recognize thefreshness and originality of many new urban andvillage creations’. He notes that ‘England’s rep-resentatives in Ireland – like Davies, Gilbert,Raleigh and Spencer – were highly educated,reflective and courteous people’. Yet, he contin-ues: ‘they were absolutely ruthless in their deal-ings with the Irish’.

Chapter 1 is entitled ‘Marking out the terrain’ andexplains the phrase ‘the forging of Ireland’ – themaking of the pre-1500 Irish landscape. It alsoprovides explanations of the terms ‘colonial’and ‘early modern’, as well as discussing themanner in which the historical and cultural

geographer approaches and uses source mate-rials. The remaining material is gathered intofour major sections.

Section I is titled ‘Making the documents ofconquest speak’. In five chapters, partly chrono-logical although also partly thematic, the authorexamines the new Irelands that the several setsof documents reveal, and also ‘to reveal thevariety and richness of the Irish worlds that lieburied and hidden beneath these texts’. We learnof the role of Robert Lythe’s surveys of Ireland(1567–1571), the ‘Rough map of Munster’ withthe plans for the establishment of plantations(settlements) and the long-delayed map ofWilliam Petty in the seventeenth century, in ‘mak-ing Ireland visible’. Unsurprisingly, map-makersand surveyors were not always popular.

Section II includes three regional case-studies:the highly anglicized ‘Pale’ around Dublin, thehybrid county of Kilkenny and north Tipperaryin the Gaelic heartland.

Section III gives an account of the processesand patterns of transformation from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century; it isheaded ‘A world turned upside-down’. In Chapter10, the mechanisms of territorial control – thestate, the cities and towns, the landlord estatesystem and church institutions are discussed. InChapter 11 the geographical transformation ofmodes of exchange and communication areconsidered in relation to an emerging capitalisteconomy, and to the manner in which mainstaysof the Irish tradition – language and literature –are reformed or eroded in the face of Englisheconomic, political and linguistic ‘hegemony’.Chapter 12, in Section IV, examines the globalcontext, comparing the colonising of Irelandwith that of America (including the Caribbeanislands). The interesting and significant role ofIreland as a colonised country that becomes an‘active participant’ in the expansion of anAnglo-American English-speaking world’ isemphasised.

It must be stressed the studies are prosecutedthrough the medium of maps. The author usesdozens of old maps and surveys in a mostinnovative way. He uses geographical conceptssuch as core and fringe, and diffusion, and alarge number of statistical maps to tell his story.

The concluding chapter summarises:

Maps were integral to what became themilitary conquest of Ireland, as well as to thedelineation, reallocation and administrationof the lands of the plantations. The mapping

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© 2008 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2008 Institute of Australian Geographers

created a new construct, revealing a newIreland as viewed through English lenses,assumptions and intentions. But in this process,other Irelands are obscured or made invisible.

He speculates briefly on what Ireland wouldhave been like without the conquest, but admitsthe limits of such a counterfactual history. Thedeveloping English nation-state, he argues wouldnot have allowed the development of an indige-nous power on her western flank. He comesclose to saying that some sort of domination ofIreland by the English was inevitable.

Mildly surprisingly, despite the lengthy sec-tion on the global context, Australia is not men-tioned; but, in the notion that the surveying andcolonisation of Ireland was a trial run for theAmericas we can surely see analogies. The ideathat the documenting and surveying of the landby a colonising power presaged its appropriationwould surely strike a chord with Australia’sindigenous groups.

This is work of immense erudition. It is extre-mely well-written. The letterpress in enlivenedwith snatches of poetry, sometimes in Irish(although the English translation is given).There are 44 pages of endnotes, and the biblio-graphy extends to 27 pages. There are dozens ofillustrations, both extracts from ancient maps,and those drawn (very competently) by theauthor to illustrate particular themes and ideas.A particular feature is a section of 16 pages offull colour reproductions of maps. There is anextremely well-laid-out index.

Patrick

Armstrong

University of Western Australia

An Introduction to Sustainable Development

,3rd Edition

Jennifer A. Elliott, Routledge, London, 2006,xvii + 283 pp, ISBN 0 415 33558 4 (hardback)£70.00, ISBN 0 415 33559 1 (paperback) £19.50.

When the first edition of

Introduction to Sustain-able Development

was released in 1993 sustain-able development was still a relatively youngconcept and Elliot’s book was a mere 144 pages.Jump forward 13 years to the 2006 third editionand the debates around sustainable developmenthave expanded and developed to a remarkable

extent and the book reflects this with almostdouble the pages of its predecessor and substan-tially more sophisticated content.

While the new edition is more comprehensiveit thankfully retains the clarity and user-friendlynature of the previous editions that will ensureit remains popular with students and academicsalike. This third edition remains one the mostlucid and well written introductions to the keyideas around sustainable development available.

The book starts strongly with an engaginghistory of sustainable development which dealswith the evolution of both international develop-ment theory and environmentalism with excep-tional clarity. It is excellent that most of thisbook focuses on sustainable development issuesin the Majority World. The book has a strongfocus on the sustainable development implica-tions of global inequality and poverty, issuesthat are too often neglected in the sustainabledevelopment literature which often focuses heavilyon First World concerns instead.

Following this excellent start on the historyof sustainable development, the high qualitydiscussion of topics continues throughout thebook from the chapter describing key sustainabledevelopment institutions to that on rural andthen urban development issues and finally anassessment of sustainable development in thedeveloping world. The book has a pragmatic andrealistic tone throughout that, in contrast to someother texts on sustainable development, makes itappear remarkably positive in tone whilst notneglecting the challenges that remain.

While the book does an exceptional job ofdescribing the history of sustainable developmentand many of its present challenges it is less strongwhen it comes to providing a coherent overarch-ing, analysis of these problems. The book lacksa unifying thesis that is able to integrate environ-ment and development issues as well as urbanand rural issues into a well developed critique ofmodern development strategies and approaches.I was left feeling that a coherent understandingof how sustainable development provides a work-able alternative to this prevailing model wasmissing.

The book points to a sustainable future whichonly goes beyond the dominant system in termsthat are often too loose and general. For example,Elliot rightly argues that increased participationof the poor in their development and higherlevels of strategically given assistance to the poorare necessary to reduce negative impacts on theenvironment. Unfortunately, the brevity with