Awfull maps these days

[Corvidae]

I'm re-reading Beevor's Stalingrad.

I'm realy frustrated by the shortage of good maps.

Not only should this book have at least a dozen of the city itself, showing the lines at various stages of the battle there...

But there should be more maps to illustrate the invasion, and the encirclement.

I want to be able to see clearly who was where.

The few maps in the book are adequate to give a rough overview,

but no more.

Why do I keep feeling that at one time, books like this were packed with detailed maps?

Am I imagining a past golden age that never was?

[Malaspina]

Same opinion here.

Perhaps we should go with new technology? Google Earth is a great aid. I've used it more than once to get a grip on events and movements of troops, trying to understand why a feature was so important etc.

[Der Alte Fritz]

See this thread http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=91085&page=2 about the decline of quality publishing.

[ravells]

Thanks for the reference to the other thread, DAF, it was really interesting reading. What an great job you had and to have met all those interesting people!

I am fortunate in that my wife's grandfather (who is still alive) was the navigator in Winston Churchill's dedicated aircrew, and he has some great stories to tell - Like the time they were flying to a conference (I think it was Yalta) and had a P-38 escort. The fighter pilots would fly as close as they could to the Liberator to see if they could get a look at the old man. It drove the aircrew in the liberator batty who thought it was dangereous, but the old man just encouraged the Americans by playing to the gallery and appearing at the window giving them the V sign which they returned. Uncle John has written his memoirs (I have them somewhere - it's an entertaining read), and we would stay up late - even in his 90s he drinks me under the table - him telling me stories about the war. Fortunately he's now being interviewed by a 'proper' military historian / author who will write his biography.

Getting back to the maps, the difference here is that Beevor's book was a blockbuster (relatively speaking) and was in the best seller charts for awhile, so a budget of say, £200, would have been OK for a map. The issue of poor maps in books is one which is close to my heart as mapmaking (for fantasy worlds mainly) is one of my hobbies and I am a one of the mods of the Cartographers' Guild and poor maps in books is one of those perennial subjects which comes up again and again.

We have a 'maps requested' subforum where we often make maps free of charge to people who want them simply for the joy of doing it - particularly if the subject matter is of interest. It would be good to see some requests for WW2 maps for monographs etc, where it is too expensive to hire a professional illustrator (although many of our 'amateurs' are as good as the pros).

All the best,

Ravs