This article merges the history of maps with new research on scholarship, showcasing how the use of maps significantly shaped early modern knowledge. More specifically, the article examines the scholarly practices of the seventeenth-century Swedish polymath Olof Rudbeck, who thought he had discovered Atlantis. The article identifies four areas of particular importance, highlighting how maps facilitated a conflation of history and geography for Rudbeck, how he tied information to geographical places through note-taking on maps, how access to maps shaped his research interests, and how he used maps to construct credible arguments. 

This article explores the interplay between knowledge and agency in early modern diplomacy. Focusing on the power dynamics of early modern empire through a case study of a Swedish embassy to the Ottoman Empire in 1657–58, the article shows how agency and knowledge interlinked throughout the diplomatic mission. At the centre of the study is Claes Rålamb, a Swedish nobleman who was sent to Istanbul to secure an alliance between Sweden and the Ottoman vassal state Transylvania. Rålamb’s journey to, and stay in, Istanbul was framed by global political developments, yet, it was also directly influenced by local customs and personal connections. In particular, Rålamb’s ability to act as an agent of the Swedish Empire was shaped by the difficulties of attaining reliable information. Moreover, the framework within which he was able to act changed between different stages of the journey. This makes the intersection between knowledge and agency a fruitful focal point for examining early modern empire, going beyond traditional national frameworks and categories of actors. Rålamb was sent out as an envoy of the Swedish empire, yet the meaning of that position changed constantly.

This chapter surveys debates among contemporary historians on the nature of historical research and change over time. Although historians often study longer time periods than what most evaluations cover, the chapter contends that the methodological issues underlying each overlap, and that both disciplines can benefit from cross-fertilization. The chapter focuses on issues concerning time scales of historical change, the danger of anachronism – to erroneously project later developments on an earlier time period – and source criticism, highlighting how these factors have particular importance for studies using long time spans. The discussion provides the reader with rich examples from contemporary historical research and suggestions on how to avoid methodological pitfalls, as well as an introduction to areas of research that are currently seeing important developments.

This thesis investigates early modern ways of looking at the world through an analysis of what the continents meant in three settings of knowledge making in seventeenth-century Sweden. Combining text, maps and images, the thesis analyses the meaning of the continents in, first, early modern scholarly ‘geography’, second, accounts of journeys to the Ottoman Empire and, third, accounts of journeys to the colony New Sweden. The investigation explores how an understanding of conceptual categories such as the continents was interlinked with processes of making and presenting knowledge. In this, the study combines approaches from conceptual history with research on knowledge construction and circulation in the early modern world.

The thesis shows how geographical frameworks shifted between settings. There was variation in what the continents meant and what roles they could fill. Rather than attribute this flexibility to random variation or mistakes, this thesis interprets flexibility as an integral part of how the world was conceptualized. Religious themes, ideas about societal unities, definitions of old, new and unknown knowledge, as well as practical considerations, were factors that in different way shaped what the continents meant.

A scheme of continents – usually consisting of the entities ‘Africa’, ‘America’, ‘Asia’, ‘Europe’ and the polar regions – is a part of descriptions about what the world looks like today. In such descriptions, the continents are often treated as existing outside of history. However, like other concepts, the meaning and significance of these concepts have changed drastically over time and between contexts. This fact is a matter of importance for historians, but equally so for a wider public using geographical categories to understand the world. Concepts such as the continents may describe what the world looks like, yet they can create both boundaries and affiliations far beyond land and sea.