I noticed that there was plenty of detail in the globe when it came to Africa - most countries are delineated with a different color - but for some reason, Europe boiled down to just three big blotches: Spain/Portugal, Italy, and a big yellow blotch that spanned Germany, Austria, Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Czechoslovakia… Hm! I pointed this out to my wife, jokingly calling it “The Reichsblotch”.
Then I noticed that that vertical line east of Berlin is 20 degrees East in longitude. I cross-checked against an actual map of modern Europe and Der Reichsblotch extends to roughly 21 degrees East - right up to Warsaw. It also juts further east in a more southern part of the globe - under the Ukraine, which is to say, Hungary and Romania. (With the Ukraine in the same color as Russia and the rest of the former USSR.)
Now, I felt a little bit chilled.
The chill went all the way to incredulity mixed with a sense of inevitability when I looked for the mark of provenance on the thing and found that unlike 99% of such throwaway tchotchkes in today’s world, this was not Made In China. It was Made In Germany. (I will eventually prove this with another picture…)
Interesting. However, Syria has also conquered Iraq, the Central African Republic has occupied Uganda, and Saudi Arabia has annexed the entire Arabian peninsula.
Yeah, if it was just a matter of using minimizing color usage and highlighting “major” countries, I could get with it. But Africa is in a much higher level of detail - seriously, how hard would it have been to make Europe at least composed of Germany, France, Italy and Spain? - and the drawing the yellow/pink boundary between “Germany” and “Russia” right at Warsaw is what really raised my eyebrows.
And look further north to where Gdansk would be, at around 19 degrees East longitude. Danzig ist Deutsch!
Hmm, but the “Central African Republic” was only independent of France as of the late 1950s (its colonial name being “French Congo” or “French Equitorial Africa”).
Mr. Turtledove did cross my mind. In fact I asked my daughter if I could mail it to him. She said no, she liked it. Maybe I’ll try to email him a link to my LJ page though
