On the seas, the world formed itself into a unity. Among the instruments and media that made the condensation of transoceanic movements possible and perceptible from the beginning of the 19th century, maps were of decisive importance. Nautical charts, which were dedicated to the precision standards of a measuring and standardising geography, allowed European seafarers to reach coasts that previously could only be approached at hardly justifiable risk. At the same time, maps that showed the oceans in atlases, in journals or, for example, on the walls of offices and placed them in ever new relations to the continental mainland, made it possible to form a conception of the world as a space of possibility connected by the oceans.
"Jenseits des Terrazentrismus" invites us to consider the formation of the global world from water – and from its medialisation in maps. In contributions from history, literature and media studies, the book stimulates a maritime-reflected globalisation research that understands the events on and the engagement with the oceans as constitutive for the formation of globality.