Customer Reviews

Satellite Atlas of the World

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This is a marvelous oversized book, reasonably priced, with stunning images from high up in the sky of much of terrestrial Earth. I look at it more as a work of art, and less as a reference you'd expect from a typical atlas of the world. If you need a reference of roads, and cities, and any specifics, look elsewhere. However, if you want to visualize Antarctica in the raw, or the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, or the Vatnajokull Glacier in Iceland, then this is your book.

My personal favorites: Bourtange in the Netherlands, Rome, Venice, Vesuvius, Moscow, Mecca, Yemen, UAE (a number of great photos), Iran (check out the Great Salt Desert), the Ganges Delta and the Lena Delta, Mauritania, Algeria (chicken skin), Australia, the Amazon, and many more.

Again, if you are looking for a map, go elsewhere. This is stunning photography from a perspective not seen by humans standing on this earth.

This volume has more than 200 full color and false color satellite images of the surface of the earth. They've been selected for their interesting aspects and their beauty, although in a few cases images taken at two different times are presented so that a comparison can be made between earlier and later. Of current (September, 2005) interest is the photo on page 223: New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. Part of the caption reads: "Damming of the Mississippi river north of New Orleans has prevented vital silt from reinforcing the river delta, with the result that the city is slowly sinking into the gulf of Mexico."

If you're interested in the earth or if you have a child or children over about 11 years old this would be a very good volume to own.

Many years ago I bougt a NASA volume "Mission to Earth: Landsat Views the World." That was published in 1976 and also had many stunning images. The advances in photographic and satellite imaging technologies since then have been remarkable and the photographs in the newer book very much show those advances.

First, the good news: this is a well-printed, sturdy, inexpensive book of interesting satellite images from around the world. I basically agree with both the Schmidt and "Retired chemist" reviews nearby, and for the $10 or $12 a good used copy is going for, you may well decide to put up with these drawbacks:

The bad news:
1) The biggest drawback, that will keep me from buying a copy even at ten bucks, is that most of the images are false-color, with (basically) no explanation for what the false colors mean. I found this to be incredibly frustrating -- but I'm a professional geologist. I have no idea why they decided to use so many false-color photos, in a book intended for a general audience.

2) The captions are often skimpy. Worse, most are printed on semi-transparent floating boxes -- the photo shows through, under the text, which makes the captions very hard to read.

3) Some photos are printed in non-standard orientations, i.e. North to one side, rather than at the top. Usually they tell you, but no graphic scale, and no North arrow, make it hard for the user to get oriented.

So this is a pretty good atlas, that with a little more editorial attention could have been a whole lot better. Frustrating, and not what I'd expect from an Oxford University Press book.

Even at the bargain price, you may want to look at a library copy first, to see if the books meets your needs. And it is very attractively-priced.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Arizona and New Mexico (USA)