'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display

This essay uses the personal archives of Clive Morrison-Bell (1871-1956), a campaigning Conservative politician who made extensive use of maps and cartographic models, to consider the entangled histories of cartography, economics and geopolitics in early twentieth-century Britain. Particular attenti...

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Main Authors: Heffernan, Mike, Thorpe, Benjamin J.
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48796/
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author Heffernan, Mike
Thorpe, Benjamin J.
author_facet Heffernan, Mike
Thorpe, Benjamin J.
author_sort Heffernan, Mike
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This essay uses the personal archives of Clive Morrison-Bell (1871-1956), a campaigning Conservative politician who made extensive use of maps and cartographic models, to consider the entangled histories of cartography, economics and geopolitics in early twentieth-century Britain. Particular attention is paid to Morrison-Bell’s Tariff Walls Map (TWM), a large three-dimensional model of Europe on which international borders were represented by actual physical walls, the varying heights of which indicated average tariff restrictions imposed on traded goods by each European country. The TWM was one of the most widely debated maps of the 1920s and 1930s. Versions were exhibited in national parliaments, government ministries, chambers of commerce, and at international conferences across Europe and the United States, part of an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against economic protectionism. By depicting nation-states as volumetric spaces separated by physical barriers, the TWM contributed significantly to the idea of the ‘wall’ as an economic and geopolitical division.
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spelling nottingham-487962020-05-04T19:51:51Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48796/ 'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display Heffernan, Mike Thorpe, Benjamin J. This essay uses the personal archives of Clive Morrison-Bell (1871-1956), a campaigning Conservative politician who made extensive use of maps and cartographic models, to consider the entangled histories of cartography, economics and geopolitics in early twentieth-century Britain. Particular attention is paid to Morrison-Bell’s Tariff Walls Map (TWM), a large three-dimensional model of Europe on which international borders were represented by actual physical walls, the varying heights of which indicated average tariff restrictions imposed on traded goods by each European country. The TWM was one of the most widely debated maps of the 1920s and 1930s. Versions were exhibited in national parliaments, government ministries, chambers of commerce, and at international conferences across Europe and the United States, part of an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against economic protectionism. By depicting nation-states as volumetric spaces separated by physical barriers, the TWM contributed significantly to the idea of the ‘wall’ as an economic and geopolitical division. Elsevier 2018-04 Article PeerReviewed Heffernan, Mike and Thorpe, Benjamin J. (2018) 'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display. Journal of Historical Geography, 60 . pp. 24-40. ISSN 0305-7488 Clive Morrison-Bell; European cartography; free trade; protectionism; tariff reform https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305748817300981 doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2017.11.010 doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2017.11.010
spellingShingle Clive Morrison-Bell; European cartography; free trade; protectionism; tariff reform
Heffernan, Mike
Thorpe, Benjamin J.
'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display
title 'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display
title_full 'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display
title_fullStr 'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display
title_full_unstemmed 'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display
title_short 'The map that would save Europe': Clive Morrison-Bell, the Tariff Walls Map, and the politics of cartographic display
title_sort 'the map that would save europe': clive morrison-bell, the tariff walls map, and the politics of cartographic display
topic Clive Morrison-Bell; European cartography; free trade; protectionism; tariff reform
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48796/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48796/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48796/