Hammond Atlas of the World.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.

This atlas, billed as the "flagship of a new generation of maps," badly needed after all the boundary and name changes countries have undergone over the last decade, was five years in the making. At the cutting edge of technology, it is the first world atlas produced directly from a digital database. Its maps, the most accurate ever created, are all computer generated. Aside from such technical kudos, it is cartography at its best.

A short history of map-making eases readers into this work. The Greeks, who knew the Earth was round, having observed its shadow upon the moon during an eclipse, first estimated the circumference of the globe and initiated latitude and longitude. As early as the second century A.D., Ptolemy organized a bound edition of maps for instructional and practical use. Toward the end of the 13th century, employment of the compass made possible a highly accurate mapping of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Explorers Columbus, Cooke, Magellan, Cabot, Vespucci, and Drake all helped to produce better charts, leading to Gerardus Mercator's world map.

Through the ages, mapmakers progressively surveyed by land, balloons, airplanes, and finally, in a quantum leap, satellites. Essentially, their task was to project a curved Earth's surface, onto a flat...