Rachel Hewitt

Rachel Hewitt, one of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Thinkers, gives a talk on the mapping of the Scottish border, recorded at the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival 2011.

The dividing line between Scotland and England has been a source of tension over the centuries, but it wasn't until the 1750s that the border was mapped from scratch, with the most sophisticated instruments and methods the Enlightenment had to offer. Rachel Hewitt, Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford and author of an acclaimed history of the Ordnance Survey, tells the story of that mapping, the motives that fuelled it, and the role of maps as icons of national identity.

This essay is recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival 2011, which takes place at The Sage Gateshead 4 - 6 November. The New Generation Thinkers are winners of the inaugural talent scheme run the BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find the brightest academic minds in the arts and humanities with the potential to turn their ideas into fascinating broadcasts.