The Modern School
Atlas has much to recommend it – It strikes the right balance between
political and geographical features, which are so essential in a contemporary atlas. Because an Atlas is as much about politics, economics and demography, as it is about the climate, vegetation, geology and topography. Ever so often, one finds that an Atlas focusses entirely on the geographical features, to the exclusion of the political factors. Such an approach restricts the utility of the Atlas to the student of the social sciences.
The Modern School Atlas is an Atlas of the world, it gives equal weightage to the various regions of the world. Often, the problem being faced by english language students is that too many pages are devoted exclusively to the United Kingdom or the United States. Either due to force of habit, or due to past practice, as most atlases are published in these two nations. But the international student desires an Atlas that is truly global in its approach, and the Modern School Atlas meets these criteria.
There have been improvements in the layout - in the use of the metric system, in the use of graphs, in a
new colour scheme, and in shading to indicate physical relief.
Over the years, the Modern School Atlas has gained a certain
reputation among both teachers and students. An Atlas is a concise representation of the human condition in graphical and pictoral form. The Modern School Atlas succeeds in living up to the format, and its reputation seems to be well deserved.
Alas, for all its virtues, any Atlas soon becomes out of date due to the rapidly changing political situation in the world. New
nations are born, boundaries are changed beyond recognition, and the spellings of names is altered. This is a limitation of the
format (hard copy), as opposed to the internet and other electronic media, where updates are readily and easily available. Perhaps we are moving towards an era where the Atlas, any Atlas, would be
available exclusively on a CD or a DVD. Which would be a shame, because the hard copy format has an attraction all its own.
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