The World at your Fingertips by Sarah Nicholson

 An atlas was once considered an essential reference book for anyone’s bookcase.

Remember that beautiful scene in the Ang Lee’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility where young Margaret Dashwood sits under the table, perusing an oversized atlas, planning her adventures? Later it is given to as a gift to her by the very handsome Edward Ferrers played Hugh Grant.

While searching for an apt literary quote, I discovered that scene was never actually written by Miss Austen, but added to the film to flesh out Edward’s character.

Nevertheless, I think my premise still stands, that once upon a time a world atlas was an important tome in almost every household. Along with a family Bible, dictionary and perhaps the complete works of Shakespeare.

Nowadays they become obsolete almost as quickly as they are printed. Few of us rely on road atlases in our cars any more as they have been superseded by satnavs and Goggle maps, much less fiddly to use en route, potentially causing less arguments over which direction to take, although who hasn’t shouted at an unreliable satnav, sending you up a dirt path to nowhere.

I still have my Hamlyn Children’s Picture Atlas in colour, covered in sticky back plastic to preserve it, a Christmas gift from mum and dad in 1975. And beside it on the shelf is an Usborne Internet Linked Children’s Atlas given to my eldest son for Christmas 2002.

Looking at my old atlas is like flicking back through an old photo album with faded pictures of a bygone age. There are photos labelled, “Czech schoolchildren comparing their collections of stamps”, an “Iranian girl strings tobacco (leaves) for drying” and an “ill-tempered camel snarls and groans at its master” in Africa.

What a strange view of the world I must have had when growing up?

Meanwhile my son’s book has a satellite image of the River Nile, a bright photo of a parrot snake found in the Amazon rainforest and a photo of Sweden’s Arctic Ice Hotel.

These photos are brighter, the world looks much more modern almost exactly how we would recognise things today, despite still unbelievably, being twenty years out of date.

Much has changed, climate change has already had an impact of the physical geography and this will only continue, meanwhile countries have gone through countless political changes and upheavals. Yugoslavia exists in both books but it no longer exists in reality.

The older atlas shows the USSR before the break up and the saddest image I have found is one of a field of sunflowers, a poignant reminder of the troubles in Ukraine at this time.

Perhaps with the advent of the internet and ALL information available at the touch of a button an atlas is no longer an essential reference tool. These books now belong in the modern history section rather than current geography but they still make fascinating reading.