Customer comments on this selection.
 atlas for Christmas
This atlas was a big hit at Christmas. My daughter had asked for it, but all the family enjoyed the takes on mapping.
 Points of view
The Atlas of the Real World
I found it fascinating to see the world through different eyes. The author shows how the world really looks with charts, diagrams and maps drawn to new scales.
The Atlas appeals not only to those of a geographical bent but to statisticians and everyman.
Insightful
A very interesting approach to raw data, the maps may be hard to decipher at times but its a fantastic synthetic view of our world and how it works, I began to wish there were more maps on more topics. Origninal way to see how nations invest, how people live what impact policies may have. It highlights unobvious patterns and trends that can then be studied in greater depth. Strongly recommended.
Cartograms - Reality maps
These 391 maps are cartograms - intentional distortions proportional to what is being represented and in relation to every other area. This is valuable because it shows what geography is about, spatial and temporal. Politicians may argue and we may perceive ourselves as "bigger, longer, wealthier, better fed, better educated or lower, longer and poorer." The cartograms show things in proportion.
The US thinks of itself as highly educated, but map 247, "Growth in Secondary Education Spending" shows the US as almost nonexistent in proportion to other countries. The highest is western Europe, India, China, Japan and Brazil. For wealth China is about to come full circle by 2015 and exceed the US in wealth. At a glance you see the net importers and exporters of goods and services. The Middle East stands out for fuel exports while the US is the largest fuel importer. These are all cartograms, there is no need to look at a data table. Through color and distortion, you know, immediately, who is larger, smaller, richer, poorer, and more.
There is a significant quote on each page for each topic. 'At City Toys Ltd, . . . . Shenzhen, youngsters worked 16-hour days, seven days a week.' The cartogram shows China far and away the largest exporter of toys. Deaths from Cholera overwhelm Africa and India while the rest of the world shrinks away.
www.worldmapper.org is a site that compliments the text and makes the information all the more accessible and useful. It gives you a full, cross-referenced index and makes the information in all the maps easily accessible. The 400 page text (28 * 24 cm) is too big to carry around, the web site makes the information accessible almost anywhere.
l use the text and the web site in the Human Geography, Geomorphology and Meteorology courses I teach. Students love the colors, shapes and easy access to data. This sets a high standard for other map - data combinations.
A valuable resource
The three- hundred and sixty- six maps, or as the authors call them 'cartograms' in this book present a picture of how each of the areas and nations of the world stack up 'demographically' in regard to a wide variety of physical parameters. The major areas covered in the book are :Land Area and Population * Travel and Transport * Natural Resources and Energy * Globalization and Internationalism * Food and Consumables * Minerals, Natural Products and Petrochemicals * Manufactured Goods and Services * Wealth and Poverty * Employment and Productivity * Housing and Education * Communication and Media * Health and Illness * Death and Disaster * War and Crime * Pollution and Depletion * Extinction and Endangerment.
The great problem I have with the book is that it really does not make clear the position of most nations in relation to most of the parameters in question. There are accompanying charts but these cover the for instance ten most populous and ten least populous countries of the world. I believe it would have been far more instructive had there been charts accompanying each map in which each particular nation of the world was ranked.
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