How Empires Make Territory

Hélène Blais is Lecturer in modern history at the Université of Nanterre Paris Ouest la Défense and membre of the Institut Universitaire de France. Her research has focused on the history of geography in the colonial context. She has published Voyages au Grand Océan, Géographie et colonization (2005) and she's currently working on the mapping of French colonial Algeria. Florence Deprest is professor in Geography at the University of Bordeaux 3. Her research has focused on geography in colonial context. She has published Géographes en Algérie (1880-1950). Savoirs universitaires en situation coloniale (2009). She is currently working on the construction of geographical knowledge about the Mediterranean. Pierre Singaravélou is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon – Sorbonne. He recently published several books on social sciences and cultural practices in a colonial context : L'Empire des géographes (2008), At the top of the Empire. European Elites in the Colonies (2009), L'Empire des sports. Une histoire de la mondialisation culturelle (2010). He currently works on the relationships between the colonial empires.

• Introduction: The relevance of apprehending spatial history of empire Tell and Sahara: the palimpsest of a subdivision of colonial Algeria; F. Deprest Outlining objects of research in Africa: district, zone, region or terroir?; M. de Suremain Surveying the Congo territory. Geographical knowledge, military resources and colonial expansion (1870-1900); P. Van Schuylenberg Science and border in the making: the Tilho mission between Chad and Niger (1906-1909); C. Lefebvre Ordering the South: The American Geographical Society's Map of Hispanic America; M. Heffernan Maps of the Empire in British Atlases, 1884-1914; I. Avila The Travels of Maurice Zimmermann in Northern Africa (1908-1930): Spatial Patterns and the Apportioning of Colonial Space; P. Clerc A rent in the imperial canvas: the Laminia affair (1893-1895); I. Surun An Empire in the Sand? Linking up Algeria and the Sudan: the Saharan Hinterland and the Making of an Imperial Idea, 1830-1930; H. Blais Ten empires in a pocket handkerchief. The territory of Tientsin and the concession phenomenon (1860-1920); P. Singaravelou The Altitude Lobby: Colonial Knowledge, Networks, and Hill Stations ; E. T. Jennings Conclusion