Hammond Ambassador World Atlas

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Disappointing....
Review: I was very excited when my box from Amazon.com arrived a couple of days ago, and eagerly unpacked it to look at my new atlas. Unfortunately, after looking at it for about 20 minutes or so, I decided that I really didn't like it all that much. I returned it this afternoon. On the good side, returns to Amazon.com are pretty easy.... (It's those lines at the Post Office during the Christmas season that are so awful....)

The Hammond Ambassador World Atlas has been recently updated (copyright 2000), but it wasn't done in a very sophisticated manner. For instance, the statistical information on "Congo, the Democratic Republic of" wasn't listed alphabetically beside "Congo, the Republic of." Oddly enough, there it was near Zambia. Hmm. Guess it's sitting there in the old "Zaire" slot. They didn't even get the replacement typeface to be a perfect match to the old one. So much for accomodating recent name changes.

I'm also disappointed with the atlas because the printing is out of register. (That's when one or more of the colors - cyan, magenta, yellow, black - isn't lined up right, so everything's fuzzy.) Furthermore, when a map crosses the gutter in the center of the book, there's no overlap from the left page to the right so it isn't clear where one side is precisely supposed to match up to the other side. These issues may sound picky, but, hey, I want a good atlas!

Rating:
Summary: This is the best atlas I have used! Very well planned!
Review: This atlas is remarkably well designed. For me, being able to very quickly find the country you want is the most important feature of an atlas, and unlike most other atlases I have seen, this atlas lets you easily and immediately find the country you want as soon as you open the front cover. This feature alone is worth a lot, but there are other great features here. The use of colour and well defined borders in the political maps (let's face it, most of us use these maps more often than we use physical relief maps) make this atlas the easiest the use. You see exactly the country you want, because it is prominent on the page, and you are not hindered by poorly defined borders. The main physical features and country data are shown on smaller maps to great effect on the same few pages as the political map. Flags are shown for the region, and there is an index of places on these same pages. No need to leave your country section to go to the boring index at the back. All in all, the Ambassador World Atlas by Hammond is great for the family, and I love it! Even my Father uses it!

Rating:
Summary: This is the best atlas I have used! Very well planned!
Review: This atlas is remarkably well designed. For me, being able to very quickly find the country you want is the most important feature of an atlas, and unlike most other atlases I have seen, this atlas lets you easily and immediately find the country you want as soon as you open the front cover. This feature alone is worth a lot, but there are other great features here. The use of colour and well defined borders in the political maps (let's face it, most of use these maps more often than we use physical relief maps) make this atlas the easiest the use. You see exactly the country you want, because it is prominent on the page, and you are not hindered by poorly defined borders. The main physical features etc. are shown on smaller maps to great effect on the same few pages as the political map. Flags are shown for the region, and there is an index of places on these same pages. No need to leave your country section to go to the boring index at the back. All in all, the Ambassador World Atlas by Hammond is great for the family, and I love it! Even my Father uses it!