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Rating: Summary: Atlas Schmatlas Review: First let me say that this book has a large number of very pretty 'maps.' If all you're looking for is pretty pictures, this book is for you. That said, I was very dissapointed to find no ancillary information with these maps - projection info, scale, date, data source. All the elements that make a map truly meaninful. Without this information, all these beautiful maps are mearly pictures. I also think it's telling that one of the captions refers to a picture of a squid as a 'giant octopus.' Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes studying the ocean knows the difference between these two animals. This could just be poor editing. Overall, this book was a dissapointment.
Rating: Summary: Atlas Schmatlas Review: First let me say that this book has a large number of very pretty 'maps.' If all you're looking for is pretty pictures, this book is for you. That said, I was very disappointed to find no ancillary information with these maps - projection info, scale, date, data source, and vertical exaggeration. All the elements that make a map truly meaninful. Without this information, all these beautiful maps are mearly pictures. I also think it's telling that one of the captions refers to a picture of a squid as a 'giant octopus.' Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes studying the ocean knows the difference between these two animals. This could just be poor editing. Overall, this book was a disappointment.
Rating: Summary: For Random Browsing Only Review: I have been reading about underwater exploration. A "World Atlas of the Oceans" sounded like the perfect study companion. I was hoping for a really good, well indexed, collection of maps that covered the entire ocean floor. I was not able to determine how much of the ocean is covered by the included maps.) The lack of an index to the maps makes it difficult to look up and, go to a map of any particular place. The table of contents lists each map by the title of the short essay that accompanies each map. So, if you have not read and recalled the essay you can't know what map you will find. In fact the entire book is a long series of articles and essays about the oceans. Lots of pretty pictures, and titillating, short introductions to interesting subjects. It IS a beautiful book, and a great intro to our underwater world, that is why I gave this book more than one star. A map of the 200 beautiful maps would have made this book actually useful.
Rating: Summary: For Random Browsing Only Review: I have been reading about underwater exploration. A "World Atlas of the Oceans" sounded like the perfect study companion. I was hoping for a really good, well indexed, collection of maps that covered the entire ocean floor. I was not able to determine how much of the ocean is covered by the included maps.) The lack of an index to the maps makes it difficult to look up and, go to a map of any particular place. The table of contents lists each map by the title of the short essay that accompanies each map. So, if you have not read and recalled the essay you can't know what map you will find. In fact the entire book is a long series of articles and essays about the oceans. Lots of pretty pictures, and titillating, short introductions to interesting subjects. It IS a beautiful book, and a great intro to our underwater world, that is why I gave this book more than one star. A map of the 200 beautiful maps would have made this book actually useful.
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