Then Again, Maybe You Can...
OK, so maybe the retail therapy helped after all. It required the stuff I bought to start showing up. So far:
German atlas from 1933
I love German maps. The colors are the best. I really like the ones from the Nazi era, as the maps show the delusion that all German overseas territories lost after WWI, such as German South West Africa, now called Nambia, are still German possessions. Other than those I've yet to find any unintentional errors.
Next:
Rand McNally Atlas from 1889
This is full of unintentional errors. Facts known at the time, such as thinking the Nile was longer than the Amazon are one thing, but Sweden and Norway were still one country in 1889. It's full of diverse charts to help illustrate the facts that heavy atlases like this one are chock full of. Mostly forgotten stuff, like how Britain was once the world's largest producer of coal and steel. This one, on illiteracy in states and territories, is especially telling:
Some things never change.
As the first picture shows, there are pressed flowers and other plants saved throughout the book. I have no idea how old they are.
From the same seller I also acquired this equally heavy volume:
People's Popular Atlas from 1907
It's a lot like the Rand McNally Atlas, just published 20 years later, with fewer errors, and full of surprising things for a book published over 100 years ago. Such as classifying "Hindoos" and Arabs as Caucasians, and two essays on why you'd never want to go to war against the Russians or Japanese. As the Russo-Japanese war had just ended, including those essays isn't a non sequitur, the surprising thing was the admiration the writer has for the Japanese soldier. This book lacks the casual racism so prevalent in most of the American reference books and material I have from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Getting those books, great procrastination material, gave me enough of an emotional boost to finish getting my tax stuff together and take it to my accountant, go grocery shopping, start cleaning up around here, and hang some more maps I've had in storage for close to ten years. Now I have all sorts of stuff to look at, trying to find unintentional errors on maps that are at least 70 years old - which has to be the world's geekiest hobby.
I love German maps. The colors are the best. I really like the ones from the Nazi era, as the maps show the delusion that all German overseas territories lost after WWI, such as German South West Africa, now called Nambia, are still German possessions. Other than those I've yet to find any unintentional errors.
Next:
This is full of unintentional errors. Facts known at the time, such as thinking the Nile was longer than the Amazon are one thing, but Sweden and Norway were still one country in 1889. It's full of diverse charts to help illustrate the facts that heavy atlases like this one are chock full of. Mostly forgotten stuff, like how Britain was once the world's largest producer of coal and steel. This one, on illiteracy in states and territories, is especially telling:
Some things never change.
As the first picture shows, there are pressed flowers and other plants saved throughout the book. I have no idea how old they are.
From the same seller I also acquired this equally heavy volume:
It's a lot like the Rand McNally Atlas, just published 20 years later, with fewer errors, and full of surprising things for a book published over 100 years ago. Such as classifying "Hindoos" and Arabs as Caucasians, and two essays on why you'd never want to go to war against the Russians or Japanese. As the Russo-Japanese war had just ended, including those essays isn't a non sequitur, the surprising thing was the admiration the writer has for the Japanese soldier. This book lacks the casual racism so prevalent in most of the American reference books and material I have from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Getting those books, great procrastination material, gave me enough of an emotional boost to finish getting my tax stuff together and take it to my accountant, go grocery shopping, start cleaning up around here, and hang some more maps I've had in storage for close to ten years. Now I have all sorts of stuff to look at, trying to find unintentional errors on maps that are at least 70 years old - which has to be the world's geekiest hobby.
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1 comment:
Maybe you can write a book about it? If Fifty Shades of Grey can be a blockbuster anything can. T. W.
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