When the world's at stake,
go beyond the headlines.

Welcome to Mid-Afternoon Map, our exclusive members-only newsletter that provides a cartographic perspective on current events, geopolitics, and history from the Caucasus to the Carolinas. Subscribers can look forward to interesting takes on good maps and bad maps, beautiful maps and ugly ones — and bizarre maps whenever possible.Editors, like hungover readers, appreciate a clear thesis statement. So I was particularly pleased this morning to open Ignatius Donnelly’s 1882 book Atlantis: The Antidiluvian World and discover 14 of them. In Chapter One, helpfully titled “The Purpose of This Book,” Donnelly explains that he will “attempt to demonstrate several distinct and novel propositions.” These propositions begin the claim that “there once existed in the Atlantic Ocean … a large island … known to the ancient world as Atlantis” and only get more distinct and novel from there. Donnelly goes on to argue that not only did Atlantis exist, but also served as the birthplace of civilization. The Atlanteans colonized the new and old world alike, spreading their language, religion, and technology. “If these propositions can be proved,” Donnelly writes, “they will solve many problems which now perplex mankind,” “they will confirm in many respects the statements in the opening chapters of Genesis, “and “they will explain the remarkable resemblances which exist between the ancient civilizations found upon the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean, in the old and new worlds.”I admit, even with my thinking somewhat subdued, I was skeptical. But Donnelly did his homework. And in the course of skimming his exhaustively researched, meticulously sourced, and totally insane 516-page screed, I started to come around. Consider the evidence: “The great antediluvian king of the Mussulman was Shedd-Ad-Ben-Ad, or Shed-Ad, the son of Ad, or Atlantis.” What’s more, “Rawlinson expresses the opinion that the ancient Assyrians possessed the pineapple.” Exploring the