Larry W. & Susan Hardin Wood Postdoctoral Fellow

319 Love Library
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-4100
402-472-4547
nicholas.gliserman@unl.edu

Nicholas Gliserman’s research focuses on the history of cartography in North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His book project, tentatively titled Cartography and Empire in Northeastern America, 1580-1760, traces the production and reception of manuscript maps in transatlantic political networks. Here Nicholas examines the work that a broad range of individuals from imperial governors to Iroquois fur traders thought maps could do for them in advancing personal and geopolitical agendas. In this way, the project illustrates the evolving roles of maps across nearly two centuries.

Nicholas’ digital humanities work employs ArcGIS to extract geospatial data from historical maps to analyze the changing colonial landscape. At the CDRH, Nicholas is digitally processing and analyzing a series of forty-four highly detailed manuscript maps, collectively known as the Murray Atlas, produced after the British conquest of Canada. The greatest payoff of this project involves reorienting our sense of colonial geography through an interactive web map. Most present-day maps depicting early America do so according to the imaginary lines projected by empires centuries ago. In contrast, this web map will illustrate how Euro-American settlements closely hugged waterways, only occupying a fraction of claimed territory.

Nicholas received his Ph.D. from the History Department at the University of Southern California. He comes to UNL after spending a year as a visiting faculty member at Haverford College where he taught courses in the history of cartography, early American history, and Atlantic World history.

Nicholas Gliserman