Maps tell us much more when they do not divide nature into nations when they allow it to form the basis of comparison across all the borders made by man.
They grow out of date quickly and give barely any information apart from who is currently running which scrap of colour. Įver since then, I have not trusted political world maps, in which countries float on the blue oceans like vivid scarves. On this map there was no wall dividing the two German countries, no Iron Curtain instead there was the blinding white, impassable edge of the page. Its ideology was clear from its map of the world, carefully positioned on a double-page spread so that the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic fell on two separate pages. I didn’t realise then that my atlas – like every other – was committed to an ideology. The first atlas in my life was called Atlas Fur Jedermann (Everyman’s Atlas). After reunification, she talks about encountering an old West German atlas in school: As a resident of the DDR (East Germany) she didn’t have the opportunity of travel, and so walked the world with her fingertips. So is Hell.’ Schalansky talks about her childhood affinity for maps. In the introduction, ‘Paradise is an island. You see, while this is an atlas of real places, with timelines showing major events on each and a wonderful topographic illustration sitting opposite Schalansky’s descriptions, this is, from the very beginning, a book that highlights the problematic ‘truth’ of maps. Perhaps it should count as my first non-fiction title, but I think not. 'Fifty Islands I have not visited and never will'
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