Early Mapping of Southeast Asia (Thomas Suárez)

Early Mapping of Southeast Asia documents the idea of Southeast Asia as a geographical and cosmographical construct, from the earliest times up until the dawn of the modern era. Using maps, itineraries, sailing instructions, travelers tales, religious texts and other contemporary sources, it examines the representations of Southeast Asia, both from the historical perspective of Western exploration and cartography, and also through the eyes of Asian neighbors.

From the time of Herodotus and Alexander the Great to the medieval cosmologies of the Christian Fathers, Southeast Asia was as much a place of myth and legend in Western thought as it was a geographical reality. Later, with the rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geographia and the ground-breaking journeys of Marco Polo and others like him, a more definite image of Southeast Asia began to inscribe itself in the contemporary cartographic record and paved the way for the great voyages of discovery in the late 15th and early 16th centuries - Columbus and Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama and Magellan.

280 pages, approximately 160 color & b/w illustrations.
Hardcover with dustjacket.

Periplus Editions (Singapore) and Tuttle USA), 1999.

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