Leslie's New World Atlas, 1920

Mrs.5000 & I end up at a lot of depressing estate sales over the course of an average summer, but occasionally we find one that shows evidence of a life well lived. At a good estate sale, you see evidence of an individual personality with interesting and wide-ranging tastes -- and you get to paw through the material artifacts of their existence to grab incredible bargains! It's hard to think of a down side.


So it was that I recently picked up the 1920 Leslie's World Atlas for, like, a buck fifty or something.


They weren't kidding about the "New World" part! It was an interesting time to be buying an atlas, hastily marked with the "Latest Boundaries as Determined by the Peace Conference."


It's fascinating to look at this snapshot of new borders superimposed over old. With hindsight, we know that they were setting up a New World that would last less than 20 years, which would be followed by another New World that would last less than 50, and then we'd finally reach the way things are now and always will be in, oh, 1992 or thereabouts.


You can see an evolution towards the world of today, but also a progress towards big disasters that were to come.

Meanwhile, in Asia, if you ever wonder why the Koreans are a little touchy about the Japanese....

Old Atli, baby! What's not to love?