Pioneers in the history of cartography: The Geneva map collection of Élisée Reclus and Charles Perron

In recent years, researchers have rediscovered the important cartographic collection of Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) and Charles Perron (1837-1909), containing more than 10,000 maps of all kinds from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, including several reproductions of early maps from Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This paper explores the contribution of these two geographers to the history of cartography as a critical discipline, analyzing the construction of the Reclus-Perron cartographic collection. It considers examples of the social and political uses of the collection at the beginning of the twentieth century within the Cartographic Museum of Geneva (1907-1922). These materials provided the basis for an original social interpretation of the history of cartography as a critical discipline endowed with a social utility, as well as an opportunity to explore a different way of conceiving maps and geography, diverging from the uncritical hagiographies of geographical discoveries and cartographic accuracy which were typical of the time. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.