Ilex/Collins

The development of Ilex’s Atlas of Twentieth Century World History was not without controversy. I became involved in 1989 at a late stage in the preparation of the atlas. The book packagers, Ilex, had a contract with a deadline for the completion of the atlas with Collins, who subsequently published it. Much of the available time was spent by the cartographers, who undertook originally to compile as well as draw the maps, with the making of a few maps only. They themselves realized that these were from an historical point of view highly unreliable. I corrected these few existing maps and compiled - with extremely intensive work - the outstanding c. 85% of the maps in time.

It was agreed that Ilex would pay by instalments. I received the first 20% of the agreed price. Their cheque for the second 20% “bounced”. Following a period of unfulfilled promises I sued, but before the case could reach court, they were declared bankrupt. They, adding thereby insult to injury, incorrectly portrayed me on the credit page as a minor contributor. Not only was in reality almost the entire atlas directly or indirectly the result of my compilation and research, I also played a significant role in the correcting of the manuscript of the academic author of the text that was littered with serious inaccuracies in terms of dates and other data.

Although this project proved to be one in which I naturally wish that I had never became involved with, its map content is suitable as a sample of my accomplishment as it was to a very large extent the result of my work, even if printed in a somewhat simplified, and at some points less accurate form than prepared by me, due to the inadequacies of the cartographers. (The shocking superficiality of a map, on pp. 130-131 that was added without my contribution or knowledge has nothing to do with me.)

 

Sample