ATLAS OF SWEDEN. Subscription price is 20 Swedish Krona (approximately $4.00) per fascicule (i.e., 6 maps with text), plus costs of special wrapping and postage. Orders may be placed with the Generalstabens Litografiska Austalts Förlag, Stockholm 16, Sweden.

The foreign and domestic policies of a nation are based, to a greater or lesser degree, upon the national and cultural resources with which the country is endowed. Maps constitute one of the simplest and most lucid media for showing the distribution of such resources. That this fact is recognized by most of the world's nations is apparent in the number of physical and economic maps which are published by official mapping organizations in most of the countries of the world.

In a number of countries, series of distributional maps have been prepared in accordance with standard specifications and published in atlas format. Such "national" or "single country" atlases present the various aspects of a nation's land, people, and economic activities in a convenient and compact form. By presenting various phenomena and data on maps of uniform scale and format, it is possible to compare different distributional patterns and to arrive at generalized conclusions.

Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Italy, and Mexico are among the countries which have published distinctive national atlases during the past twenty years. Similar atlases are under consideration or in progress in other countries. Among the latter is the Atlas of Sweden currently in production under the editorial direction of Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi. Cartography, reproduction, and printing are entrusted to AB Kartografiska Institutet, Esselte Ab, Stockholm, Sweden.

The Svenska Sällskapet, the oldest and largest geographical association in Sweden, has been planning the publication of a national atlas for a long time. Aided by grants from the Swedish government and from the Knut and Alice Wallenburg Foundation, and support from various business concerns and individuals, the Society was able to begin work on the atlas at the close of World War II.

The atlas project is under the direction of an editorial committee whose members are C. J. Anrick, Secretary of the Swedish Touring Club;

Gerd Enequist, Professor of Geography, Upsala University; Ivar Högbom, Professor of Economic Geography and Principal of the Stockholm School of Economics; and Magnus Lindquist, Editor-in-Chief. The committee has the active collaboration of several agencies of the government and various subject specialists.

In compiling the atlas, the editorial committee aims to present the basic facts within each of the various sections and to satisfy practical economic interests as well as the needs of the pure scientist. The Atlas of Sweden is designed to present a description in maps and text of the natural features, population, and economy of Sweden. When completed the atlas will comprise a concentrated and graphic survey of the foundations on which the Swedish community rests.

The Atlas of Sweden, as planned, will include 150 pages of maps and 300 pages of text (Swedish with English summaries) and will be 34 by 43 centimeters in size. Some 1,000 maps, varying in scale from 1:2,000,000 to 1:12,000,000, will be included. The maps will be arranged under the headings of Geophysics and Geology, Meteorology and Hydrology, Flora and Fauna, Population, Agriculture, Forestry, Industry, Communications, Trade, Finance, Social Conditions, Cultural Conditions, Politics, and History.

The atlas is being issued in parts, each part comprising six pages of maps with descriptive text. Two parts were issued in 1953 including plates 15-16, 25-26, 29-30, 31-32, 61-62, and 63-64. Each subscriber will be provided with a leather-bound filing box in which the loose maps may be preserved. While the publishers suggest that the plates may be permanently filed in the box, many libraries will no doubt prefer to bind the atlas when all the plates have been. received. WALTER W. RISTOW

The Library of Congress

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY: INVENTORY AND PROSPECT. Edited by Preston E. James and Clarence F. Jones. Syracuse University Press, for the Association of American Geographers, Syracuse, N. Y.. 1954. 590 pages. $6.00.

During the last few years,, several notable books have been published taking stock of the

accomplishments of geographers in the immediate past. To these can now be added American Geography: Inventory and Prospect, which presents a "progress report on the objectives and procedures of geographic research as of January 1954." Financially supported by the United States Social Science Research Council, National Research Council, and Office of Naval Research, "the book represents the combined thoughts of hundreds of professional American geographers," brought together by the Committee on American Geography of the Association of American Geographers, who sponsored the project. However, the book is not intended solely for geographers, but also for workers in other disciplines "who may want to know what American geographers are thinking and doing and what they hope to accomplish."

The approach to the inventory is through the systematic fields of the subject. Each chapter sets forth the views of a group of specialists in a phase of geography in which geographers in the United States have been actively at work or in which "the committee believes it is most essential that geographers should work." Thus the vast amount of research which has been done on Economic Geography has prompted six different treatments, which range from Marketing Geography to the Geography of Transportation. At the same time, the book meets the obvious necessity, in many places, of referring to earlier, usually European, work, and in about one-third of the twenty-six chapters, some of the contemporary work in Canada and other countries, is mentioned.

It is inevitable that certain facets of this manysided discipline will hold greater appeal for some readers than for others. This reviewer found the chapter on Political Geography particularly satisfying.

A

After a discussion on the

nature of the topic, it deals with methods of study and the division of the world into political units, concluding with the problem of the analysis of the individual political region. The plea for further internal analyses of states, and for more attention to such minor organized units as townships and parishes, is well presented and is a field in which the geographer can contribute much to the development of his more immediate communities. This chapter also includes a survey of boundary studies, which will interest some surveyors and professional mapmakers, although their attention is more likely to be immediately arrested by the sections of the book on the Interpretation of Aerial Photographs and Geographical Cartography, the documentation of which includes many references to Surveying and Mapping and Photogrammetric Engineering. The illustrations include eight aerial photographs, in addition to maps which demonstrate the approaches of geographers to specific problems.

The index is rather puzzling as it lists some authors to which the text refers as briefly as others who are not indexed, and, in one instance, Prof. Eva Taylor's work appears in the index as that of Griffith Taylor. As the book will not only become an important reference work but also a well-used one, this is a slight, but only a slight, blemish.

This year, the Association of American Geographers is celebrating its semi-centennial and one hopes that its members will accomplish as much in the next fifty years as they have done in the past. They have set their sights high, and in so doing will rally their professional colleagues far beyond the borders of their own country. NORMAN L. NICHOLSON Geographical Branch, Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, Ottawa, Canada

of this permanence of fusion and the inherent stability of aluminum, the paper offers a good medium for the drawing of original maps and plans, where durability, resistance to climatic conditions, and dimensional stability are required. Other advantages cited by the makers are light weight and comparatively low cost.

The paper is available in sheets of any size up to 39 by 48 inches, and rolls up to 36 inches wide and 50 yards long, from the Geo-Optic Co., Inc., 170 Broadway, New York 36, N. Y.