The geographer in me was tempted to buy this Atlas when the
religion map was featured in the Church Times a few weeks ago.
There is great coverage of different issues, population,
economics, health, environmental and such like and it is seeing the different
maps together that really begins to add up to a bigger picture.
We all know there are no lies like Statistics, and when stats
are given visual expression extreme caution is needed. Published by the New Internationalist the narrative
and the selection of issues is clearly within a particular political world view
(for example the comparison of Gross National Income to the revenue of
transnationals has an implicit suggestion that the power of these transnationals
is problematic).
However when on map after map there is a great red sweep
across the centre of Africa you can’t avoid acknowledging there is something
going on. Also startling is seeing that
per capita China’s Gross
National Income is in the same bracket as Angola
and St Lucia. It is making these kinds of connections which
are the strength.
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