Review of The National Geographic Atlas of the World, Tenth Edition (ISBN: 978-1426213540)

SYNOPSIS

Published to mark the 100th anniversary of National Geographic cartography, the prestigious and authoritative National Geographic Atlas of the World, Tenth Edition is an essential guide to understanding today’s increasingly interconnected world. Illustrated maps and informational graphics chart rapidly changing global themes such as population trends, urbanization, health and longevity, human migration, climate change, communications, and the world economy. The core of any atlas is the reference mapping section and the 10th Edition boasts the largest and most comprehensive collection of political maps ever published by National Geographic. 

REVIEW

As a homeschool mom, I just love maps, globes and atlases. They are used so much in our weekly curriculum that I don’t know what we would do without them. A good atlas costs a pretty penny, and this edition is no exception, with a retail price of $98.39.

With this in mind, we see the purchase of an atlas as a family investment, and expect that we will be using it for many years to come. Once I bought this atlas, I fully expected that all of my kids would be using it all the way through their high school years. We even drew our known family tree on the copyright page, as we were sure that this would be an heirloom that our kids would fight over after Josef and I passed on.

However, those dreams died fast. Had we not written in the book, we might have returned it. Had I not torn out the copyright page to hide the fact that we wrote in the book, maybe the bookstore employee wouldn’t have noticed. Either way, we are stuck with this thing, and we are not about to spend another $100 on an atlas while my husband is on military pay.

The reason for my consternation came when we began to study Eastern Europe. First, and most disturbing, there is no mention of the U.S.S.R on any of the pages of the atlas! The largest country in the world is neither labeled, nor mentioned anywhere. It is broken up into a bunch of smaller countries that no one has even heard of. Yes, Russia is still there, but that’s just a nickname for the Soviet Union. It’s as if National Geographic thinks that they can just do away with the evil empire by simply taking it off of the map!

Secondly, one of my daughters wanted to know where our car was made, as she is very proud of our foreign car. All of our neighbors have domestic cars, but ours is very special. So imagine my surprise when Yugoslavia was not in the atlas, either. They simply erased Yugoslavia from existence. If this is part of the “buy domestic” initiative, I’m not laughing.

Just for kicks, I looked up Czechoslovakia. Not there either. However, there are places named Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan (not joking), Tajikistan, and Herzegovinia. Why remove one impossible-to-spell country, and replace it with five others? They are just making this stuff up!

CONCLUSIONS

What garbage! We live in a somewhat stable world, with borders being protected by walls, fences and bureaucratic visa processes. There is no excuse for stirring up trouble by publishing a book that represents the overthrow of legitimate governments as if that were a fact, and to create new countries in the sovereign territory of existing ones. This atlas is partisan politics at its worst. 

I am giving this book four out of five stars; I’ve never seen such beautiful pictures!  

Until next time,

Anne Stallings, for Novel Premise Book Reviews