地图是如何创造世界的

地图是如何创造世界的

来源："绘制主权国家的地图：技术、权力和系统性变化"，作者Jordan Branch，载于《国际组织》，2011年冬季。

很难想象一个没有我们所知的现代民族国家的世界--它们的权力、关系，以及可能最重要的边界。但根据加州大学伯克利分校的政治学家乔丹-布兰奇的观点，现代国家可能是一个历史意外，是15世纪地图制作技术进步的一个无心插柳的副产品。

在中世纪后期，从小型贵族到神圣罗马帝国皇帝的各种当局都声称对一些不连续的地方拥有权力，而不是对连续的领土拥有权力。主权以城市、乡镇和村庄为中心，向外辐射，周边地区的定义往往模糊不清，很少有人理会。中世纪的地图反映了这一现实，强调 "城市等地方的重要性高于它们之间的空间"。在这一时期，统治者和旅行者将文本用于今天地图的许多用途，如提供旅行方向和在条约中划分主权。

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How Maps Made the World

THE SOURCE: “Mapping the Sovereign State: Technology, Authority, and Systemic Change” by Jordan Branch, in International Organization, Winter 2011.

It’s hard to imagine aworld without modern nation-states as we know them—their power, relationships, and, perhaps most of all, borders. But according to Jordan Branch, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, the modern state may be something of a historical accident, an inadvertent byproduct of 15th-century advances in map-making technologies.

During the later medieval period, various authorities ranging from small-time aristocrats to the Holy Roman emperor claimed power over collections of discrete places, not contiguous territories. Sovereignty centered in cities, towns, and villages and radiated outward, with peripheries often ambiguously defined and little heeded. Medieval maps reflected this reality, emphasizing “the importance of places such as cities over the spaces in between them.” During this time, rulers and travelers used texts for many of the purposes maps serve today, such as providing travel directions and demarcating sovereignty in treaties.

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