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Title: Oxford Atlas of the World, 14th Edition
ISBN: 0195334000
Author:
Publicate Date: 2007-10-15
Publish: 2007-10-15
List Price: $80.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $80.00
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $40.26
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Well done!
I haven't bought a new one in years. This has amazing detail and information. Glad I purchased this one. The whole office has been using it.
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2: I'm torn between this one and its junior brother
This is certainly a beautiful volume, and I bought it solely for its price: I had paid $40+ for its junior brother a few years ago in the bookstore, so why not upgrade for free, as it were? The maps are lovely, and the front matter is largely helpful--I say largely. For one thing, the city "maps" are all but useless: one is hard-pressed to find a street identified by a name rather than by a generic route number (viz., within a national highway system); arbitrary pieces of cities are selected for presentation; and one finds suburb A peculiarly mislabeled as suburb B, or a leg of freeway C misidentified as freeway D. Then, there's the overall size of the work. Not that this is anywhere near as large or heavy as the London Times atlas--a work for which it is, quite literally, an ordeal to look up a city in the voluminous index and then hunt for it with a magnifying lens on the proper square of the proper page--but it's still awfully large. Given that large size, you'd think the publisher could do a better job of presenting the world's time zones. (Mind you, its "junior brother" didn't show time zones at all, but this atlas is scarcely better, offering a sketchy, fraction-of-a-page map that's all but useless given the numerous +00:15 and such quirks of the world's time zone allotments.)
All those criticisms having been leveled, the maps are glorious. Truthfully, I haven't seen nicer ones anywhere--even in, yes, the London Times atlas, which has been the standard-bearer for eons (though I guess its staff would refer to them as aeons). The colors are a delight to the eye, providing the perfect balance of legibility and topographic cues: you can actually see, e.g., Tibet straining upward off the page, reaching for the sky. Also, this atlas contains some vital maps that its junior sibling lacks: important among these are close-ups of central Honshu, Korea, the U.K., and so forth. Surprising omissions include better detail of Israel and Turkey: come to think of it, anywhere the borders are of intricate fractal dimension--say, Greece, Maryland, Denmark--a better job could have been done. I'd also like to see flags, let alone clear and more consistent indication of sub-national borders, be they of oblasts, denes, pradeshes, estados, etc. But let's look at the overall equation: for under $50, you get gorgeous maps; a plethora of very useful charts; mellifluous essays that don't hurt; lovely satellite photos that are, again, entirely harmless; and even a handy wall map to keep your kid brother occupied until his new Mega Space Zork Wars arrives in the mail.
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3: A Very Nice Book
We purchased this book as one of the graduation gifts for our daughter. She just got her Masters Degree and will probably be teaching Geography. She was extremely happy with the book. The quality of the book, along with the price, was outstanding and we are very happy with our purchase. We will certainly return to Amazon.com for any future book purchases. Thank you.
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4: A clear and comprehensive atlas.
The main virtue of the Oxford Atlas of the World is its clarity. It may not be as detailed as the larger and more expensive competitors (eg National Geographic Atlas of the World) but the maps as plentiful and very readable.
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5: U S States
Oxford Atlas of the World, 14th Edition. I had hoped for more towns listed on U S States, otherwise Atlas is very useful for other areas of world.
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