Review : Mine, all mine

Map a country and you own it—good as. As Matthew Edney argues in
Mapping an Empire, the British East India Company’s trigonometric surveys of
India 200 years ago combined territorial and intellectual conquest.
“Civilisation” came armed with a theodolite. It is how Britain painted half the
world’s map red. Published by University of Chicago Press in August,
£27.95/$35, ISBN 0 226 18487 0.