I remember cutting out of Der Spiegel a map titled Ronald Reagan’s world. This was back in the 1970s (I think) and Europe and Asia were divided into ‘our missiles’ and ‘their missiles’. Great Britain was oddly shaped and called ‘our aircraft carrier’. It was funny, but seriously worrying at the same time. I have no idea if the cartoon still exists – if it does, I would love to see it.
I also remember seeing a book about the mental maps of different sorts of people living in different parts of the UK. Londoners saw England as basically the South-east with a small misshapen blob of ‘the rest of England’ on top of it. Scotland was barely visible. Again, it was funny, but it made its point.
Yesterday someone on the wonderful Twitter pointed to a site called Big Think. 483 – The Great European Shouting Match had me laughing out loud. Read Bill Bryson’s Neither Here nor There (his tour of European countries and prejudices about them) in conjunction with Big Think and you can’t help laughing out loud. You’ve got to go to the site to see the maps and commentary.
[Update: There are more (the originals?) here.]
[Next update: This just gets better and better! Try this and this and this!]
October 18, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Poking around the Big Think site (believe it or not) unearthed this: “38 – The World According to Ronald Reagan”, which looks pretty close to the cartoon you describe, Nick. The UK appears to be “a subsidiary of Disneyland” instead of an aircraft carrier, though; not sure I prefer…
October 18, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I could only find a Der Spiegel article from 1982 in the archives but no cartoon….
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-14339533.html
October 18, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Erika & Mark, great detective work! I had the cartoon on my wall when I was a student (I think). The maps are funny, aren’t they?!
October 18, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Regarding maps has anyone seen this one?
http://edge.org/ I hope it works cut and paste if not taken there
October 18, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Sorry wrong one (above) meant this one.
http://twitpic.com/2xu4ou
October 19, 2010 at 1:04 am
Mental maps « Nick Baines's Blog…
Here at World Spinner we are debating the same thing……