Texts on the map in the Mercure de France, 1672-1771
In the 18th century, the map and its uses spread throughout French society. The Mercure de France was one of the vehicles for this spread. This journal was not only a place for advertising, but also for debate, sometimes between map specialists. Nicolas Verdier (CNRS / Géographie-cités / EHESS) shows the temporality of this dissemination through the prism of a periodical and clearly marks the break in the first third of the eighteenth century, before a more open dissemination beyond the circles of power begins.
The interesting thing about the Mercure de France is that, throughout the century, it was one of Europe’s leading journals. It therefore provides us with a particularly useful observatory of developments on the continent during this period.
Nicolas Verdier is Director of Research at the CNRS and Director of Studies at the EHESS. His research falls within the framework of the intersection between territorialities in time and the epistemology of knowledge about spaces and territories, the two approaches forming two sides of the same questioning. One question guides this reflection: how do societies negotiate and renegotiate their relationships with spaces and territories over time? By mobilising two fields: the study of spatial recompositions and the epistemology of knowledge on spaces and territories, it proposes reflections on the temporalities of unification and territorial development, on the concepts of scale, hierarchy, network or memory, or even territory.
Communicating Science and Technology
Historical Perspectives
This text was published in a collective work entitled “Modalités de la communication scientifique et technique”, edited by Muriel Le Roux, CNRS researcher and historian specialized in the history of science, technology and business.
