While I'm at it, I'd like to say something about O'Brien's Atlas of World History, published by Philips. I mention it here since no matter how I search, I can't find this atlas listed anywhere, but this is a really superb atlas, and I think exceeds even the present volume in terms of quality and features. So if you can find this one, I'd also pick up a copy. Because it's so good, I'd also like to discuss it here.
All the of the big 5 or 6 major atlases out there have their strengths and weaknesses, and their pros and cons, I've discovered, and this one is no different. This one has one terrific feature that's worth mentioning specifically. At the end of the book O'Brien includes many fine articles summing up the state of the world since 1945 for the major areas and countries of the world, and for topics such as demographic changes, the growth of population, civil rights and women's rights, health and disease, transport and trade relations, the breakup of empires, and so on. O'Brien discusses in the introduction that this atlas was motivated partly by the upcoming millenium year, and because it seemed like such a timely point at which to assess and sum up much of the changes and progress that had accrued during the last half century or century in these articles. O'Brien did a great job in this area, and it's one of the book's many strengths. Overall, an excellent atlas given all the outstanding features, and I'd actually give it 4.5 stars if I could.
Since I started writing this review, I've discovered (through having purchased both books), that the Philips volume and the Oxford atlas are exactly the same book, just by different publishers. The only difference that I can find is that the Philips book is somewhat larger format. I'm comparing them right now, and the Philips book is about 1 inch wider and about 2 inches taller than the Oxford volume. This means the fonts for the paragraph text and the print on the maps are somewhat bigger and easier to read. They both have exactly the same--312--number of pages, and the publication dates are in 2001 and 2002, so they're very close there. However, I just noticed that the Philips book on the copyright page says "This edition published for Borders Books," so it looks like a re-issue of the Oxford volume, only in a slightly larger format.
Well, it looks like I just bought two copies of the same atlas. Hopefully my little review will keep you from doing the same! Anyway, whichever atlas or version you decide to get, happy atlas buying and reading!
This collection is by the best I came across. It is well laid out. It is also printed in sufficient detail and quality that I can keep it out on my coffee table. Each map is accompanied by a little bit of text. So in some respects it is the history buffs perfect book...of OH! I didn't know that.
The book is a variation of one of the best (and perhaps *the* best) "atlas of world history" tomes. However, this scaled-down version's text is just not as easy on the eyes as that of the full-size book. The map and text content are the same for both books so the concise version is certainly a real value at about half the price. The Concise Edition does omit the glossary but I do not consider that an essential feature of the original book. The larger original version came out in 1999 (and was reprinted in 2002). The Concise Edition is merely a reprint of the 1999 book and I can find no updated data. An advantage of the Concise Edition (besides the lower price) is its physical handiness; the original is quite close in size to the big Hammond Atlas of World History. Nevertheless, I like to casually browse through atlases so the increased eye-friendliness of the larger type and map detailing in the big version is well-worth its added expense and clumsiness for my purposes.
The Concise Edition is indeed legible and would be OK for just occasional reference but not protracted reads, in my opinion. It is really a 5-star book but I rate it at 4 stars because of this truncated size. I am returning my Concise Edition and keeping its big brother. Both editions are still available from Amazon at the time of this writing.
