Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in antique American maps & prints
Ten striking propaganda Newsmaps published by the U.S. War Department during the Second World War, covering roughly the period between the surrenders of Nazi Germany and Japan. Unusual in being accompanied by their original War Department mailing envelope. This run of Newsmaps is not continuous, but all were issued between May 7 and August 13, […]
![Bruno / Imp. Paul Dupont, LIRE LA BASTILLE Journal Hebdomadaire Illustré ANTIMAÇONNIQUE [“Read La Bastille, the Illustrated Weekly Anti-Masonic Newspaper”]. Paris: [Paul] Copin-Albancelli, ND [but ca. 1906].](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/BRM3157-Bruno-La-Bastille-ca-1906_lowres-e1538741005186-150x150.jpg)
A spectacular albeit noxious French persuasive map using the octopus motif to promote anti-Semitism and anti-Freemasonry. As in other European nations, French anti-Semitism has a long history, most famously manifesting itself in the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s and collaboration with Nazi deportation of Jews during the Second World War. In the public mind, Jews were […]
![U.S. Government Printing Office, [Nav War Maps 1 through 6.] Washington, D.C.: Navy Department, 1944.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BRM3308-Nav-War-Map-No-1-Mediterranean_lowres-e1568215297699-150x150.jpg)
A mammoth and colorful “Nav War Map” of the Mediterranean issued by the U.S. Navy near the end of World War II. This impressive, separately-published propaganda map was produced in 1944 to highlight the strategic importance of the Mediterranean, which “offers many approaches to Fortress Europe.” It also emphasizes Allied successes there during the Second […]
A mammoth and colorful propaganda map of the North Pacific issued by the U.S. Navy near the end of World War II. This impressive, separately-published poster highlights events across the North Pacific, beginning with the Japanese strikes of late 1941 and early 1942. The attack on Pearl Harbor is highlighted, for example, by a depiction of […]
![R[obert] M[acfarlane] Chapin, Jr., THREE-WAY DOOM. [New York:] Time, Inc., April 2, 1945 [but a bit later.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/BRM2943A-Chapin-Three-Way-Doom-1945_lowres-e1568144898268-150x150.jpg)
A striking poster published in the waning months of the Second World War, showing what was left of the Japanese Empire being decimated by American bombers attacking from three directions. The map is a much-enlarged version of one printed in the April 2, issue of Time magazine. Mapmaker Robert M. Chapin (fl. 1937-1970), Chief Cartographer […]
![[ 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 […]
![Prepared by The Educational Services Section Bureau of Naval Personnel / U.S. Government Printing Office, Nav War Map No. 5 [:] SOUTHWEST PACIFIC. Washington: Navy Department, 1944.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/BRM3309-Nav-War-Map-No-5-1944_lowres-e1575295857722-150x150.jpg)
A spectacular pictorial map of the Southwest Pacific, issued in 1944 by the U.S. Navy. The map highlights events beginning with the Japanese offensive of late 1941 and early 1942, identified by sweeping orange arrows. American counteroffensives are shown by light blue arrows, beginning with the 1942 landings on Guadalcanal, with the limits of American […]
A striking 1943 poster depicting options for Allied offensives against the Axis, drawn by Robert M. Chapin for Time magazine. The poster features side-by-side maps of the European and Asia-Pacific Theatres on a stereographic projection, giving the viewer the sense of seeing the Earth from space. The theatres of war are, in a sense, carved […]
![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 […]
A brilliantly-designed and brutally-effective propaganda map, comparing Germany to a monstrous octopus threatening Europe. Germany is shown in different shadings of red, indicating its numerous annexations of surrounding territory since 1740, the most recent being its 1871 seizure of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War. Sprawled above it is a large octopus in a Prussian Pickelhaube […]