Customer Reviews

The State of the World Atlas: Sixth Edition (Penguin Reference)

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4 star:		(2)
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This book, together with The State of War and Peace, is a desktop classic that would make an outstanding gift for any student of any age, and for any adult concerned about the state of the world we are leaving to our children. This is much more than a book of graphic generalizations; as a researcher myself I especially appreciate the specific identification of the sources that were consulted, and the summaries of each of the major political-legal, socio-economic, techno-demographic, ideo-cultural, and natural-geographic conditions threatening the stability of the "Whole Earth". I dare to think this book should be required reading for our elected representatives as well as our military commanders charged with "shaping" their regional environments.

This book is very informative, yet concise. I was looking for an atlas that would provide a good amount of information to get the "big picture" of countries. This one does it for me. The only other one I was considering (from The Economist) was not in stock. In retrospect, this might be better. Well, we'll call it a tie.

Good information on global environmental issues was why I consulted this book. I also wanted to see if was suitable as an inexpensive book for passing to contacts in other governments. It hit the spot on both counts.

For those wishing an overview of global environmental issues, there are good maps (with helpful commentaries at the back)on Biodiversity, Forests, Global Warming, Energy, Food, Traffic and Cities ( these, working back from the end are the maps in the final section "Sustaining the World"). But other sections have maps with material important for environmental issues: Health Risks, Tourism and Life Expectancy ( see the inset map on access to safe drinking water p 17). There is a good index.

This book brings the world's inequities into focus. Through brightly colored maps that capture issues such as slavery, energy, and religious oppression, the authors do a superb job of making the realities of the world very apparent. I use this book in many of my classes at DePaul University with very powerful results.

Every social scientist should have this book in his bookshelf. The book clearly conveys a broad array of data in a simple way (graphics), that enables you to retain the information for longer periods of time. Also, issues such as gender equality, pollution and genetically-growned food are included in this atlas.

I own an earlier edition that was more detailed and expansive, while this newer edition appears to be more vague. The sections of Ethnicity and Religion used to be more interesting as sections called Minority Rights (showing the various minorities of the world and their varied types of struggle), while the religion section told us the religions that were followed and their variants. This has been changed and not for the better. The sections on women are somewhat bigger and better however as we get to see Women Working and Mothers Working which would have helped the last edition. The economic indicators have also been changed, but not for the better as things are more vague. The US, UK, and Japan have a similar Stock Market value we are led to believe (as they all exceed 1 trillion dollars, but this is obvious. Shouldn't the US be in a class of its own in this regard? The book has a European perspective which I can appreciate as I am tired of the American perspective which I've grown up on, but I was actually looking for a more global perspective. Still though, this is a one of kind source for this sort of information for those of us looking for a quick look at how the world is today. I'd recommend it until something better comes along or they take some of the old and some of the new and do a better job with the next edition.

THIS IS SUCH A WONDERFULLY INFORMATIVE BOOK, ESPECIALLY FOR THE 'HISTORICALLY CHALLANGED' AS I AM! I ENJOYED THIS BOOK BECAUSE IT MADE LEARNING CURRENT EVENTS VERY PRACTICAL AND UNDERSTANDABLE. THE MAPS ARE GREAT. WITH THE COMPLEXITY OF EVENTS GOING ON IN THE WORLD TODAY, IT WOULD TAKE A COLLEGE DEGREE IN MANY SUBJECTS JUST TO UNDERSTAND A LITTLE BIT! BUT THIS BREAKS IT DOWN IN AN EASY TO UNDERSTAND FORMAT. I VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK, AND THE OTHERS IN THIS SERIES, TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO FURTHER UNDERSTAND CURRENT WORLD EVENTS!