The American Geographical Society's Map of Hispanic America: Million-Scale Mapping between the Wars

ABSTRACT

The 1:1 million Map of Hispanic America, compiled at the American Geographical Society's New York headquarters between the First and Second World Wars, has been seen as a landmark in twentieth-century cartography. In this essay we re-evaluate the Hispanic Map as a technical and scholarly project and re-assess its wider significance for the history of twentieth-century topographic mapping in the light of the cultural and political factors that shaped its development. When finally completed in 1945, the Hispanic Map was rightly judged an unsurpassed scientific achievement and a major work of art. But it was already out of date, superseded by newer cartographic technologies, particularly aerial survey and reconnaissance, that had removed the need for the kind of meticulous and painstaking compilation that the Hispanic Map exemplified.     

Confraternal Devotions in Malta, 1670–1798

The aims of this article are twofold. It first discusses how confraternities tried to improve the spiritual worth of their members. The brothers conducted their devotions communally in their oratory, confessing and receiving the Eucharist, hearing mass and listening to sermons. They also participated in processions while the liturgy of the suffrages for the dead was recognised as the special task of confraternities. The brethren also practised their own private devotions, like examination of conscience and the adoration of the host. Second, the brethren were not concerned solely with themselves but they influenced the other parishioners, who followed their example.     

Conversion Narratives and the Roman Inquisition in Malta, 1650–1700

This article analyses the conversion narratives which Christian renegades to Islam narrated to the inquisitor on their arrival in Malta in the second half of the seventeenth century. A few of them really believed in their new faith and were declared formal heretics, but the great majority had either been brought up as Muslims since a tender age or else were only suspected of believing that one can save oneself as a Muslim. The inquisitors were very indulgent with them and believed them when they said that they preserved the Christian religion in their hearts and were Muslims only on the outside.     

Axe aesthetics: stone axes and visual culture in prehistoric Malta

Highlighting a theme of visual culture, this paper examines the physical and conceptual transformation of ground-stone axes in the Maltese islands between 5300 and 1500 cal BC: from tools and well-travelled valuables into symbolically-charged objects of social display, spiritual power and ritual sacrifice.     

The Secret Society's Secret: The Invoked Reality of the Tiandihui

This essay examines two sets of reports in the Qing-dynasty Jiaqing and Daoguang periods (respectively 1796-1820 and 1821-45) in order to understand better the perceived reality of the Tiandihui.The first set,found among the papers of Jiangxi governor Xianfu (1809-14),allows a comparison of a criminal gang that invoked the Tiandihui ceremony with one that did not.The second set includes the diary of Taihe county magistrate Xu Dihui (in office from 1824) that recorded various events which came to be reported to the senior officialdom as having been conducted by secret societies.By collating the incidents as reported in the diary and memorials to the emperor,the authors argue that the pressure of the administrative process was responsible for the ultimate acquiescence by the Hunan governor Han Wenqi (in office 1825-29) in the perception of an indisputable connection of the incidents with secret societies.Moreover,both sets of reports show that participants in secret-society ceremonies and officials who suppressed them knexv that the acclaimed networking of the Tiandihui as implied in its folklore was very far from the reality.     

ChoroWare: A Software Toolkit for Choropleth Map Classification

Choropleth mapping plays an important role in exploratory spatial data analysis. Several objectives have been suggested to guide choropleth map construction. These objectives, however, often conflict and, consequently, a choropleth map that is best for one objective may not be best for others. Choosing a set of choropleth class intervals is thus a multiobjective problem. This article describes an open-source software toolkit, called ChoroWare that is designed to help cartographers identify class intervals that are suitable for a specific application. The software uses a genetic algorithm to generate a set of nondominated solutions to the multiobjective choropleth class interval problem and uses an interactive visualization tool to display members of this classification set. Using ChoroWare, cartographers can examine trade-offs between alternatives and find desirable choropleth classifications that meet their objectives.     

Religious Colonialism in Early Modern Malta: Inquisitorial Imprisonment and Inmate Graffiti

Early modern Malta was governed by three competing Roman Catholic institutions—Order of St. John, Bishopric, and Roman Inquisition—all of which ultimately answered to the Pope. By focusing on the inquisition, the institution most directly controlled by the Vatican, this paper explores the role of imprisonment in furthering the Vatican’s cultural and political control on the island. In doing so, this paper offers an archaeological perspective on an early modern prison context. Through analyses of the prison cells and the inmates’ graffiti, I argue that the inquisition’s ability to imprison was crucial to the Vatican’s colonial position in Malta.     

Place Marketing,Strategic Planning and Competitiveness: The Case of Malta

This article investigates place marketing and strategic planning processes in the case of Malta Island as a competitive tourist destination. The article focuses on the main ingredients that compose the marketing and strategic planning performance and presents the repositioning process of Malta's image in the international tourism market. The article concludes that place marketing is a strategic process with particular phases of development that leads to the creation of a competitive and attractive destination. Finally, the article supports that strategic planning and place marketing could not operate by themselves, but they need to be built on partnerships among local actors and decision-makers.     

Pollution Monitoring for Sea Salt Aerosols and Other Anionic Species at Hagar Qim Temples,Malta: A Pilot Study

The damaging effects of sea salt aerosols on Globigerina Limestone are well known, and various professionals have studied and reported on the often complex underlying deterioration mechanisms. Following a preventive conservation project, undertaken to shelter and protect the UNESCO World Heritage Neolithic temple sites of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, the Preventive Conservation Unit within the Diagnostic Science Laboratory at Heritage Malta embarked on a pilot study to identify whether sea salt aerosol deposition patterns within the site alter significantly post sheltering. The results from this short pilot study, by identifying the presence of salts using ion chromatography, have shown that there is a consistent pattern that when directly linked to the intrinsic shape of the temple interior as well as to the micro-environmental factors that are changing as a direct result to the sheltering, point to the trends of greater pollutant accumulation, particularly dust.