I open by thanking Anne Kershen, founder of the Centre for the Study of Migration, Queen Mary University of London, whose work as a historian and expert in migration has been an inspiration to me since we first met over two decades ago. Her constant support as a mentor over the years has shown an intellectual (and practical) generosity I can only aspire to in my own academic practice.
I am also grateful to Lara Speicher from UCL Press, who has encouraged this project ever since I first mentioned to her my interest in historic maps. Thanks must also go to the team at the press; especially Jaimee Biggins and Alison Fox.
While most of the research reported here has been done alongside other academic activities, I would like to acknowledge the sabbatical funding from the Architecture Research Fund of the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL in 2017, as well as research funding received from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the latter of which supported my analysis of several of the maps in this volume.1
I would also like to thank the many people, mostly anonymous, who have donated maps to various repositories around the world, as well as the curators of some important map collections, without whom this study would have taken a significantly longer time. A special mention is due to the David Rumsey Collection and the University of Chicago Map Collection, as well as to Cornell University Library’s Persuasive Maps Collection whose vast repositories were invaluable for my research and whose (mostly anonymous) archivists and curators provided some excellent leads for background reading on the maps.
I am grateful to the following people and institutions who granted me permission to use their own map copies, in most cases responding within a number of hours to my request: Emmanuel Eliot and the Geoconfluences project; Stephen Ferguson from Princeton University Library; the Science and Society Picture Library, the Science Museum; Ralph R. Frerichs, the UCLA Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health; Sam Brown from the University of Chicago Map Collection; Jenny Schrader for information on the Blind Alleys of Washington; Chris Mullen for providing (and scanning for me) his copy of the Rowntree map of York; the University of Pennsylvania archives and Amy Hillier for access to the Du Bois map; Oliver O’Brien, Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC); Alex Werner, curator, Museum of London; Tinho da Cruz, librarian, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, who brought the Hume map of Liverpool to my attention and provided me with a copy of it; Edward Denison and the Asmara Heritage Project; and Jonathan Potter Ltd., whose responsiveness, as a commercial business, is one of many examples of the generosity I have enjoyed throughout this project.