The Orient

The Orient coverThe Orient
Hillyer and Huey
1966

Submitter: While cleaning up the children’s section, we have been finding some out of date histories and wording with several books. Such as this one…Time to ship this one off to the recycling bin.

Holly: Waaaaiiiit a minute. I’ve seen this cover before. Yup – here it is.

I mean…the map below is for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That alone makes it weed-worthy.

Orient contents

The Orient - continent

The Orient - Samoans

The Orient - map

10 comments

  1. Pakistan isn’t even labeled on the map, but “Peking” is.

    Australia is an entire continent and it only gets 7 pages?

  2. That map is out of touch with the book. Per the table of contents, there is a North and South “Viet Nam” but the map has a single “Vietnam”. The Republic of the Philippines becomes the “Philippine Islands”, a term that was long spent by then. Singapore wasn’t a country at the time, but “Borneo” was. The rivers and country borders become very hard to tell apart in south-east Asia, which is a cartographic problem more than the names.

  3. Yeah, “The British Colony of Hong Kong” chapter is just a bit outdated as well…..

    1. I’m guessing those in charge of funding think “Oh, people can just get up-to-date information online. Why should we give the library any money?”

  4. And how about: when the article’s subject is politically neutral, the country is referred to as “Myanmar”, but if it’s about opponents of the ruling military junta, it’s called “Burma” ?

  5. I’m of Samoan descent and am torn between being mildly pleased that American Samoa was brought up (most people I encounter think it’s that coconut Girl Scout cookie) and insulted that they called our traditional attire “strange” and falsely asserted that it’s only worn by the men.

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