14 FEBRUARY 1941, Page 26

Serial Map Service. January 1941. Commentary by Serial Maps, Letchworth

and London. Maps produced by J. Bartholemew. (25s. a year).

IT is impossible to follow intelligently any war, least of all this, without reference to maps, yet no ordinary atlas gives all we want to know about this or that part of the world which suddenly becomes prominent in the day's news. Serial Map Service, issued once a month, provides an admirable running commentary on the war in the form of maps specially prepared to illustrate recent events and articles or notes written by experts which relate geography to politics, economics, or defence and attack. The latest number, for example, has an article by Miss Dorothy Woodman on " China among the Nations," and a map showing communications and political divisions; and an article on "America's Proximity to the War " by Miss Helen Parkins Gauntlett, with a map which shows the relation of the United States not to the Atlantic only, but also to the Pacific, Canada, and the Arctic Ocean. A useful, well-planned, and well-produced series, in which, however, we should like to see more large-scak maps of areas which are the field of military operations.