The book of the world
This new edition of the massive Book of the World was not available in time to be included in 'An Evaluation of Current World Atlases,' which was published in the January 1 & 15 issue of RBB. Now that the revised edition is out, it is understandable that the publisher calls it a revised rather then a second edition. Revisions to the maps are minimal: the changing of Zaire to Democratic Republic of the Congo, the reversion of Hong Kong into China, the new capital of Bolivia (Sucre), and a few name changes for cities in Armenia, India, and Russia. Based on user input, mistakes have been corrected, including correctly labeling Lake George and Schroon Lake, New York (although Schroon Lake is not in the index). Statistics for countries have been revised in the 'Data and Facts' section. This section lists brief, basic information on population, life expectancy, GNP per capita, illiteracy, etc. Sections unchanged in the revised edition include the 264 pages of maps from the database of the famous cartographic institute, Bertelsmann; more than 40 pages of satellite photographs of different environments (e.g., coral reef Maldive Islands, rift valley East Africa, glacier Aletsch Glacier); and the full-page satellite photographs of the Mississippi Delta, Anti Atlas Mountains in Morocco, and other stunning geographic features of the world. Although the index has 100,000 entries, there still are familiar place-names that are not listed (Marblehead, Massachusetts; Thun, Switzerland; Montalcino, Italy). Libraries that are interested in a larger index of place-names still need to use the Times Atlas of the World (ninth ed., Times, 1994) with its 200,000-term index-gazetteer. A new edition of the Times atlas will be out later this year. The Book of the World depicts the world as a beautiful place and illustrates how modern technology benefits the publication of a book. This is a comprehensive atlas and also provides an education in geography. Libraries that have the first edition RBB Jl 96 will have to decide if minimal changes warrant buying the revised edition. Any library without the first edition should certainly consider purchase of this fantastic atlas.-
Map, English, ©1999
Rev. ed., 2nd U.S. ed. 1999
Macmillan USA, New York, ©1999