Today’s offering from the Rand McNally World Atlas of 1946, is the final one.
This map is of course the one that was current at the outbreak of World War II. The section at the front is a series of maps of Europe, which I’ve posted the last couple of weeks. This final one, isn’t meant to be a ‘current’ state of affairs, the atlas itself was first printed in 1941 and the copy I have is from 1946 and the maps in the rest of the book, look like they take into account any boundary shifts from after the end of WWII in 1945. So these have been intended as historical looks at how the European continent changed in the period up to WWII. It’s given me, probably as intended, a much clearer insight and understanding (one can understand and still not condone), the aims and intentions, the reasons and the disputes that were amongst the causes of WWII. Which, we should never forget, Germany planned and wanted. Alone.
The copy accompanying the map is as follows:
This map shows the triumph of nationalism in the map of Europe following World War I. By comparison with Europe in 1815, it reveals the break-up of19th century empires and the rise of independent nation states. The changes in territory resulting from World War I, created some of the problems leading to World War II.
It then states that ‘for maps of Europe showing changes resulting from World War II, see pages…’ They are pretty much what we have today – apart from a re-unified Germany and Yugoslavia all broken up. I’ll have a look see if I can get decent copies of those sections to post.
I hope these maps prove worth your effort to look at, and maybe, like me, they will help your reading and understanding of both Historical Fiction and Non-Fiction books of this period.
The other posts of European maps in this series are here:
As previously, if you click on the map at the top, you’ll got to a Pinterest-hosted full-size version on Speesh Reads’ Pinterest page.
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