David Woodward - Accomplishments in Field

Accomplishments in Field

According to Malcolm Lewis in the (London) Independent, Woodward "transformed the history of cartography from a directionless Eurocentric field into a respectable subject now global in scope."

During a 1977 walk through the countryside in Exeter, England, David Woodward and J. Brian Harley, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, developed the idea for what became The History of Cartography. They envisioned an ambitious multi-volume reference work that would examine the social production and consumption of maps across cultures from prehistoric origins to the twentieth century. Harley died in 1991, but Woodward completed the work. These volumes are now the benchmark for students and academics in the field. Jim Akerman, a colleague of Woodward's from the Newberry Library, states that Woodward's contributions to the field of cartography history are so substantial that they "defy attempts to summarize them".