Reviews for The world atlas of revolutions

The average rating for The world atlas of revolutions based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-03-15 00:00:00 Thomas Shields Backroad Mapbooks: Southwestern Alberta is a complete outdoor recreational guide for those working, living, or traveling to southern Alberta. This book contains full colour maps showing the smallest back road, river tributary, and lake. Maps also include details on the size and general condition of roads; location of campsites and tourist information centers; and indoor and outdoor recreational areas. This book also contains a very detailed reference section with information on fishing regulations and fishing tips; lake and river paddling routes (including put in and take out areas); parks and campgrounds; hiking, walking, and sightseeing trails; wildlife viewing areas, and winter recreation areas. Within each of these sections, various areas of southwestern Alberta are explored with detailed entries on particular locations, sites, and areas. This part of the book will be particularly useful to those visiting the area as well as residents looking for something new to do. As an archaeologist, I do a lot of back road and oilfield access trail driving. Usually, the development or survey map I am given is in really bad shape and usually twenty or thirty years out of date. Therefore, I usually have to guess how to get to my project area. This takes up extra time that could be better used on site. Using this map though, I now have a good idea of the exact oilfield roads to take to get to my sites. I even have an idea of how good of road conditions I can expect on these roads saving me a good deal of valuable time. In this way, the map portion of this guide will be particularly helpful for those working in the oilfield industry. This book actually shows many of the existing back roads and oilfield roads so that the reader can quickly find a way into his or her project area. I know of only one other map book with such detail. This other book retails at over $250, making Backroad Mapbooks: Southwestern Alberta much more economically reasonable.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-05-13 00:00:00 Raymond Lu As a cartomaniac, a librarian, and a history lover myself, this book seemed to be just the ticket for me. I loved the digressions into the science of maps, notable historic maps, mapmakers, historic map thieves, explorers, map collectors and the map trade. However, I found the story of the map thief to be about as bland as the thief's own name. In fact, the author takes pains to illustrate that thief is a personification of his own name. His is a story not worthy of telling, except as a cautionary tale for all archivists, librarians, collectors and the like who might fall prey to low life vandals such as Bland. His story becomes even more tedious by the end, and then turns into a sentimental author's introspective. I grew tired of the way the author always tries to tie the story of maps into the story of the map thief, as if everything about maps is somehow analogous to this repugnant protagnist. I also thought that the author's attempt to make the entire story applicable to himself, even to the point of drawing an analogy between his own life and that of the thief, as if his whole experience of researching the story of the map thief was actually a journey of self disovery, was pretty weak and contrived. I think I would have rather read this book as two separate works--one a collection of newspaper clippings detailing the arrest of Mr. Bland and the subsequent crime investigation, and another as a brief history of all the varied aspects of the world of maps, including map crimes, of which this map thief's story would merely figure in as one egregious example, rather than as the focus of the entire work.