Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in antique American maps & prints
![Hal Shelton, Vail [:] COLORADO . . . SKI COUNTRY USA. Colorado Springs: Looart, ND [but ca. 1965.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/BRM3213-Hal-Shelton-Vail-ca-1967_lowres-e1546614337648-150x150.jpg)
An attractive 1960s bird’s-eye view of Vail ski resort, one of the America’s iconic Winter destinations. The main image is a bird’s eye view of the resort’s front bowls, trails and lifts, complemented by a view of the back bowls at lower right and a photograph of the base resort at lower left. It was […]
![[ Containment Policy ] Draper Hill, [Two versions of an untitled Vietnam War-era political cartoon featuring Lyndon Johson, Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara.] Probably Worcester, Mass., ca. 1865-68.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BRM2941-Draper-Hill-LBJ-cartoon_2-150x150.jpg)
A rare political cartoon by Draper Hill satirizing the United States’ Cold War-era Containment Policy, which sought to limit the expansion of Soviet communism but ended up precipitating the catastrophe of the Vietnam War. Present here in both working manuscript and printed form, enabling one to see changes from conception to the final copy. The […]
Suite of maps from a landmark study of the Moon by the U. S. Geological Survey, from the early years of the space race. The race to the Moon began in August, 1958, with the launch from Cape Canaveral of the Able 1 lunar orbiter. The rocket exploded soon after takeoff, as did numerous succeeding […]
A monumental and extremely rare poster for a Japanese film celebrating the War in the Pacific. Owned in partnership with Geographicus Antique Maps. This mammoth poster and map of East Asia and the Pacific was issued to promote the Italian release of the 1958 Japanese film Battaglia del Pacifico. Produced by the Shin Toho Company and […]
A colorful and upbeat pictorial map of the United States celebrating the “great diversity in its land and its people.” Drawn by Mary Ronin and published by the Department of State for the United States pavilion at the Brussels Universal and International Exhibition, better known as Expo 58. I quote at length from P.J. Mode’s […]
![[Artist’s name illegible], Bless Iceland. [Keflavik, Iceland?], May 4, 1958.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/BRM3571-Bless-Iceland-1858_lowres-scaled-e1588615136952-150x150.jpg)
A delightful—and unrecorded—pictorial map commemorating an American officer’s stint in Iceland from 1959-60. The map adorns a large printed certificate, designed to be completed in the name of individual servicemen and presented to them upon their departure from Iceland. It depicts a cartoon-ish version of the country, featuring little but geysers, fish racks and volcanos, […]
![NATO [:] NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION. [Canada or the United States, 1955?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/BRM3545-NATO_lowres-scaled-e1589316399276-150x150.jpg)
A rare and rather spectacular map of the NATO alliance, depicting member states in blue, the Soviet Union in red, and its satellites in orange. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in August 1949 as a mutual-defense pact to counter the Soviet bloc. NATO’s original members including the United States and 11 Western […]
![Genevieve Foster, A TIME CHART [:] from the first date on the calendar of Egypt to the birth of the United States of America. Chicago: Denoyer-Geppert Company, 1953.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/BRM3306-Foster-River-of-Time-1953_lowres-scaled-e1584374877353-150x150.jpg)
A rare and visually striking chronological chart of world history, attempting to show the parallel development of, and interactions between, the great empires of Europe, Africa and Western and Central Asia. Like many such efforts, it presents the United States as the culmination and high point of “the story of freedom,” while giving short shrift […]
![[ Gulag ] [After Isaac Don Levine] / Arti Grafiche Panetto & Petrelli, CAMPI DI LAVORO FORZATO nella Russia Sovietica [:] Carta documentata, preparata per conto del Comitato Sindacati Liberi delle Nazioni Unite. Spoleto and Rome, [1951?] Accompanied by, and possibly removed from, SCHIAVISMO ROSSO [:] IL LAVORO FORZATO IN RUSSIA DOCUMENTATO ALL’ O.N.U. DALLA FEDERAZIONE AMERICANA DEL LAVORO. Firenze: Salani, 1952.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/BRM3326-Campi-di-Lavoro-Forzato-1951_lowres-e1568369343582-150x150.jpg)
A powerful persuasive map documenting the extent of the Soviet Gulag system, produced with the quiet support of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Gulag was created under Lenin almost immediately after the Revolution, taking its name from an acronym of the Russian phrase for “Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps.” Though estimates of its scale […]
![Isaac Don Levine, “GULAG”—SLAVERY, INC. THE DOCUMENTED MAP OF FORCED LABOR CAMPS IN SOVIET RUSSIA[.] New Edition (1951)… New York: Free Trade Union Committee of the American Federation of Labor, 1951.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/BRM3574-Gulag-1951-copy-150x150.jpg)
A rare and chilling relic of the Cold War, being a “persuasive map” published with covert CIA support and documenting the vast extent of the Soviet Gulag system. So effective that many tens of thousands of copies of this and similar maps were distributed worldwide. The Gulag was created under Vladimir Lenin almost immediately after […]