Annotated Bibliography
Hewitt, Rachel. Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey. London: Granta Books, 2010.
This book explores the formation of Great Britain’s national mapping agency, the Ordnance Survey, and how its founding, premised on politics, science, war, and a hunger for knowledge, led to a greater national British identity.
Sarkar, Oyndrila. “The Great Trigonometrical Survey: Histories of Mapping 1790–1850.” The
Indian Journal of Spatial Science 3, no. 1 (2012): Article 4.
This article looks at the reasons for and ways in which the British mapped India during the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Sarkar deduces that this survey was imperative for colonization of India by Great Britain, as it provided them knowledge of the land which allowed for its control.
University of Michigan Library. “The Great Trigonometrical Survey.” In Maps and Map-making in India (online exhibit). Accessed July 31, 2025. https://apps.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/india-maps/survey/great-trigonometrical-survey.
This online exhibit page discusses the tools and methods used in order to conduct the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Furthermore, it notes the inherent imperialism behind the map-making and Great Britain’s efforts to control South Asia.
Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM). “Surveying Methods.”
In Fundamentals of Mapping. Accessed July 31, 2025. https://www.icsm.gov.au/education/fundamentals-mapping/surveying-mapping/surveying-methods.
The Commonwealth of Australia released this online resource which explains the concept of triangulation and defines domain-specific vocabulary.
Goetsch, Adam. “The Evolution of GPS.” Illumin, Communication Issue I, Volume VII.
University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, May 2, 2025. https://illumin.usc.edu/the-evolution-of-gps.
This article explores the history of GPS and how it works as well as its current and potential applications.
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