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Contents:
1 - Power; 2 - The cost of living; 3 - Differences; 4 - Rights; 5 - War and Force; 6 - Money; 7 - The business of pleasure; 8- Life and Death; 9- Tables.
Review:
It is quite reasonable to argue, as the author does, that never has there been more information about the world. At the same time getting hold of it and, more importantly, making sense of it has become more difficult. More does not equal better. What is needed is a simple visual format of key ideas. Whilst these can never to completely accurate (are any data?) it does allow some form of analysis and discussion to proceed. There are several examples of this on the market today: this one is tied in with the key yearbook State of the World.
This atlas is the seventh in the series and continues the work of previous volumes. There are 47 individual measures divided into 8 parts. Of course, there are more than this that can be used but here are the major ones and those that seem most important at the time when the atlas was constructed. Thus part one, power, has 6 examples to illustrate its theme. There is a brief introduction and then the first of a series of world maps dealing with politics and political systems. In addition to governments there's also maps on control of space and oceans as well as international and transnational corporations. Part two covers the basic living standards from population and urbanisation to energy and biodiversity. Part three looks at differences in our global situation. Although globalisation is a key element (although, it must be said, its effects are still controversial) there are still many variations. Quality of life, although difficult to define, is one area showing marked variations across the globe. Ethnicity, another area of difference shows the problems in data gathering. According to their map, Australia has less than 10% ethnic minorities yet such a multicultural nation is full of different groups. This is not to criticise the map makers but to highlight the problems in gathering disparate global data in a small two-page map spread (conversely, it makes excellent teaching material by virtue of the assumptions made in the data!). Part four tackles the issues of rights, a crucial area of much importance in dealing with environmental and ecological issues. Maps here deal with human rights, free speech, children's rights and freedom from persecution. Interestingly here, for human rights, almost every nation is noted with the exception of Norway and Finland which does again call data into question. Part five deals with war and peace with data on military spending, terrorism etc. Part six turns to economics with the usual data such as income, trade and debt but also drugs and migrant workers. Part seven contains an unusual mix of examples under the heading of 'pleasure'. Communications and media feature first although these might be thought mainstream but sport, tourism and the sex trade are used to illustrate the range of ideas presented. Part eight returns to more familiar territory with vital statistics - life expectancy, nutrition and health issues. Part nine presents a range of data in the form of tables by nation.
It's very easy to be critical of any text, let alone map, that seeks to distill disparate global data into a simple measure and so that shouldn't be seen as the measure of this book. What we do find is a very lively, beautifully produced set of maps which given highly visual basic comparisons over a very wide range of examples. As such this is a great addition to any library making it one of the definite must-buys of the texts reviewed this year.