The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World

by John Davies, Alexander J. Kent, James Risen (Foreword)

The “utterly fascinating” untold story of Soviet Russia’s global military mapping program—featuring many of the surprising maps that resulted (Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian ).

From 1950 to 1990, the Soviet Army conducted a global topographic mapping program, creating large-scale maps for much of the world that included a diversity of detail that would have supported a full range of military planning. For big cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and London to towns like Pontiac, MI, and Galveston, TX, the Soviets gathered enough information to create street-level maps.

The information on these maps ranged from the locations of factories and ports to building heights, road widths, and bridge capacities. Some of the detail suggests early satellite technology, while other specifics, like detailed depictions of depths and channels around rivers and harbors, could only have been gained by Soviet spies on the ground.

The Red Atlas includes over 350 extracts from these incredible Cold War maps, exploring their provenance and cartographic techniques as well as what they can tell us about their makers and the Soviet initiatives that were going on all around us.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Geography, Maps, Cartography, Soviet Union

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 22, 2022

About the author

John Davies is a British map collector and enthusiast. He encountered Soviet mapping whilst working in Latvia in early 2000s. Since retiring from a career in Information Systems he has been writing and lecturing about these maps and is editor of Sheetlines, the Journal of The Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps. He lives in London and runs the website http://redatlasbook.com/

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I have literally NO idea what possessed me to waste my time paging through this oh-so-sensational artifact of a book from the Cold War thinking and review it. Why exactly did I think this author might turn out to have enything enlightening to tell? Gullible, my middle name. (*Warning, DANGER, lots of swearing involved. Was really disappointed.*)

I have never ever seen a more stupid premise for a book. And I do read regularly a lot of pretty crazy trash. (Just look at my book shelves. And the most embarassing stuff I don't always shelf.) Even Weir's Artemis (sci-fi), which I just had a major bitch-fest on, had surprisingly more research behind it.

Oh, they wrote in Cyrillic script! Of course they did, their native language was Russian. Were they supposed to use Kiswahili language or Devanagari script or maybe some space symbols or what? Is that really so surprising? The author must be really easy to surprise. I'm sure even milk manages it all the time.

Like, oh, fuck, they had maps! Of course they had maps, you a dumbass of a researcher. The US, USSR, China and pretty much any country with geography science bodies had maps of the world throughout the 20 century, and some very detailed ones. Yes, extremely detailed. Everyone did it and everyone had them. And they did it all long before the era of Internet. Even long before the Soviets and the oh-so-scary (but mostly just lame!) USSR, straight in 1880s the Russian Empire had maps of the world and the world had maps of it. There even were BANKS in Russia, then. The Societe Generale Group had 80% of their assets in the Russian Empire businesses around the beginning of the 20th century! Of course the revolution did not get to destroy everything, maps they retained. Surprising, huh?

What the hell is so weird about that? People did not waste their times attention-seeking on FB and even GR. Instead, they studied, travelled and developed science. My great-great-grandfather way before that train wreck of a revolution had mastered 6 foreign languages! Just imagine how much effort and travelling (and, yes, geographic maps perusing!) was needed to achieve that!

And the world atlasses were not a hidden thing. Anyone could buy these for personal use. Nothing nefarious or sensational or conquer-the-world-ism about it. It's straight-laced popular science.

And damn, bitch, many of the modern politicians and speakers and journalists and other public might just benefit if they went and did some geography studies. Maybe, just MAYBE, they would no longer be confused about Limpopo, mixing Korea and Crimea, differentiating between the 2 Georgias, voicing concerns for the imaginary country of Kyrgbekizstan freedom and sending space cadet fleets to the unexisting shores of Belarus.

[Raughley Nuzzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really great companion guide to any of the maps you can view/order on RedAtlas.com. It gives a lot of detail about what is contained in the maps and describes Soviet cartographic efforts generally. I had hoped for some more specific details about how the maps were made, but the deductions about satellite overflights and on-the-ground personnel and copying of other countries' maps made for interesting, albeit brief, reading.

I wish the book had focused a little less on Britain and the US and showed some examples from further-afield. The USSR, after all, mapped the entire world! I also wish that the book hadn't focused as much on the mistakes within the maps--while these are occasionally illustrative of the map-making techniques, I was more interested in the cases where the Soviet maps provided [i]more[/i] detail than their Western counterparts.

Overall, it was a really neat technical overview of what these maps depict and how they were made.

[Michael Lundgren · Rating 3 out of 5]

So let me start by saying that this book is very interesting. I've been studying Russia for some time now and I enjoy learning about different aspects of the country and its history. This book discusses a little known about and still secret operation by the former Soviet Union to map the world. The level of detail that they put into their maps has made their maps some of the most valuable in the world, not to mention that many of the maps still remain under tight security. While the book is interesting and is a great topic to research, I have two issues with the book. Number one: the book is really written for cartographers. If you don't have a fair grasp of cartography you're not going to understand some of the aspects discussed in the earlier chapters. I had to google a lot of things while reading. I don't have a problem with that, but I know it would make the subject one that wouldn't be broachable by some people. Number 2: I wish they would have spent more time discussing how the data was gathered from the ground. I'm sure it was difficult to ascertain since the program is still under wraps, but it would have added more to the book for me. If you have an interest in maps and have a decent understanding of cartography it's a book for you.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well... I'm a map geek, but this was dry. Beautiful, a sight to behold, but dry. The technical aspects of the mapping were...dry. The human tales woven in were interesting, and the Russian maps downright beautiful, but unless it was an area I knew, it was, well...dry. Borrow this book, page through it, enjoy the gorgeous maps, the excessively high quality of the production of the book - I mean, it even feels good, but think of it as a slightly smaller-than-coffee-table book and be happy with that.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the book is a dry comparison of maps side by side and an inventory of maps that the soviets created in their efforts, comments on the maps' perceived focus, their iconography etc. Perhaps interesting for a cartographer or scholar but the book severely lacks in interesting anecdotes and historical details beyond dry facts, and that fails to keep the interest levels up for very long for a casual reader curious about maps, their history or significance.

Only the final chapter mentions the maps' modern history of resurfacing and modern day use. But this chapter being only 12 pages long will make you feel like the book ended before it even began.

[Constantin · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a cartography/geography nerd like me this was an absolute treasure. The scale and accuracy of Soviet mapping is as impressive as it is frightening, but most intriguing is their purpose. They are more then simple military maps, they tell a different story of the Cold War. If destruction by nuclear war is so imminent, why would you bother to chart the world so meticulously? If you're going to destroy something, why would you map out it's every single detail? Maybe the apocalypse wasn't as close as we thought it was......... But I'm just theorising at this point. We may never know.

Back to the book, I don't really recommend this to anybody that hasn't a strong interest in either cartography or the USSR, because the book does tend to get a bit dry and tedious (fault of the large amount of technical details given).

[Agreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

finished on page 142 i think, the rest is an appendix of all maps and symbols featured in the book (will look through for the rest of my life). see earlier activity note for preliminary thoughts, but in spite of the material often being kind of dull, the magnitude of this achievement still comes across and is interesting to contend with. i wish there were more first hand testimonies like in chapter 4, and also if some of the maps could be translated to english (solely for this book) in order to more easily understand some of the references the authors make

[Todd N · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book on an impulse when someone posted one of the Russian maps and link to redatlasbook.com. I’ve had it on a table next to my couch for a few months so I can thumb through it. Really interesting stuff, especially the training posters showing how to interpret the maps. I think it’s more a book you browse around in than read cover to cover. I’ll probably mail it to my daughter who is working on a masters in GIS.

If you go to the website you can purchase large copies of these maps. Perfect for the person who has everything.

[Mr Shahabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I dare say targeted for Map Fanatics and Cartographers around the world. But I Loved how the Soviet kept a very secret handling and care towards their national mapping systems and made it completely unaccessible to the world and intentionally distorted the civil public maps to avoid any usage by enemies. They never trusted anyone geopolitical that's why they created their own mapping system of the world, all in a complete secrecy and stunning artistically.

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nerdy but fascinating

[DW Rowlands · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really cool history of the Soviet program to map the world for military purposes, which was particularly interesting to me as an urban geographer and aspiring cartographer.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A treasure of data for scholars and a feast of amazing images for lay people. I will caveat slightly that this, for me, is not totally a reading book per se but more one to experience. Creepy and cool to see Cold War depictions of places I have lived in and visited. Seeing the letters for Potomac in Cyrillic is particularly unnerving. The level of detail that they had globally was just incredible.

[Bill Sleeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World by John Davies and Alexander J. Kent; with a forward by James Risen is – for a map work that is so focused on the details of comparative cartography – remarkably entertaining. As authors Davis and Kent explore how these maps were discovered, how they were made and how they were distributed, or oftentimes, NOT distributed readers will get a real sense of just how far reaching (no pun intended) the Soviet and later Russian Federation map making efforts were. The sense of spy craft comes through loud and clear in this work (it could be a great Tom Clancy story – “The Cartographic Conspiracy”). Still, it is intriguing that even at this late a date after the discovery of these maps that Western agencies still know so little (or so it is claimed) about the Soviet/Russian efforts to gather the data. That said Davies and Kent do a fantastic job highlighting all of the possible known sources and processes that were likely employed for a particular map. The illustrations are richly printed and well annotated and full citations and a useful bibliography is included. Although no substitute for reading the atlas which map and cold war fans really, really should, this brief story from National Geographic provides a good introduction.

[FL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five and a half years ago, I had just arrived in Latvia when a good friend sent me a link to a Wired article about Soviet Military Maps, which were available for purchase in the very city I was staying. I was able to pick up a few maps of some familiar cities, albeit only at a far scale. Not knowing much Russian, I didn't have a clear sense of what I was looking at.

This book, then, provided the sorts of close-readings and contexts I'd wanted for those maps. The authors use minute details of maps to reconstruct as much of a narrative of they can about how the Soviets made their maps---by comparing various Soviet maps to each other and to non-classified Western maps of the time, they can make interesting hypotheses about some of Soviet intelligence agencies' working processes, sources, and priorities.

That is, the book contains not just delightful reprints of maps and oral histories surrounding them---much of which one can obtain from their online publicity---but also hints of what to look for, so that the maps reveal more than the otherwise might.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

You literally could not make cold-war era espionage more boring than this book does. It promises to tell you about "evidence of Soviet agents on the ground" and cites bridge weights and forest density.

Apparently the author didn't consider they bought a truckers atlas and copied it, and that tree density can be seen by measuring trunk shadows in winter.

What the author does do is laboriously point out differences in OS maps and Russian maps to suggest how "spooky" accurate they are. It is dry. So dry.

Here we see Fig 1, there are two trees next to the pond
Here we see Fig 2, there is only one tree next to the pond

This proves Russian agents were planting trees.

I may have made the last part up, but it's more interesting than anything in the book.

[Ken Gross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating read about how the Russians…err…Soviets…mapped the world. Much of that effort is still shrouded in secrecy, but based on the military maps that have been revealed, we know have a clearer picture of what the Soviets knew, what they deemed important, and how that geographic knowledge influenced mapping activities and eventually increased that knowledge to the world.

I sure wish that I had some of these materials when the Soviet Union fell when I was working for a world atlas company!

If you like maps, but are reading averse, this is a good book for you: much of it is illustrations and examples. Think: less than half is text. A really good read.

[Olly Colluphid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting.

UK centric, which was fine for me, but it might get have been good to hear about Soviet mapping in the non-west too.

I also felt that given in places this felt like a list of technical details it didn't really feel informative. Maybe that's because of the secret nature of the subject.

Good fun to see what the Soviet's knew about Pembroke Dock and Burghfield AWE when we got blank spaces on OS maps!

[Nikky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of book where the title alone will indicate if you're going to like it. Are you into Cold War historical records? Strangely detailed Soviet maps in Cyrillic? If so, you're in luck!

If there's a downside to this book, it's that it doesn't go into enough detail into the particularities of these maps.

[Robert Reese · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the cold war the soviets undertook a massive mapping operation of the world. This book recounts the history of these maps, and how they came to be known in the west. The book is full of high quality reproductions of the soviet maps and goes into extreme detail over everything from legends to the symbology used.

[Sumit Gouthaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic itself is quite interesting. But the book is not that fun to read. The initial section has lots of repetition and the middle section is far too detailed which makes reading it a chore.

In general, I was hoping for the book to present things in a more narrative manner, rather than throw a lot of examples all at once.

I ended up mostly skimming the book.

[Keith Case · Rating 3 out of 5]

This whole book could be summed up with one sentence: The Soviets used aerial photography and existing maps to map the world. The whole rest of the book is just comparisons between the source material and the Soviet maps, great if you're really really into maps. But there's no information about how the information was collected, or the human stories about the project.

[Dann Zinke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting look at Soviet mapmaking. The book compares Soviet maps with (mainly) British ones to highlight differences and give insight into how the Soviets made their maps. This is a very nerdy book. I would have enjoyed it more if I was able to read Russian so to actually understand the maps. Sometimes the map captions were lacking in detail or specificity.

[Stephen Curran · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are big into cartography, and I mean really deep, then you may enjoy this book. It is not so interesting wise. I have always liked maps, but this book would only appeal to a super enthusiast.

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great reproductions of the maps, but overly US/UK-focused and focused on the technical specifications of the maps. It would have been interesting to cover the broader impact and context of the program.

[James S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great topic, poor execution: not enough maps and, above all, extremely flat writing. I also find some of the author's claims to be exaggerated. Were these Soviet maps really so good? The ones he shows don't seem as remarkable as he says they are...

[Ian Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A total gem for cartography nerds :-)

[Ichor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rare example of forensic cartography. The Red Atlas microcosmically captures the process of mapmaking in all its rich and complex glory.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite enjoyable. If you like to look at maps this one is for you.

[Paul Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Not just for fans of maps...contains very interesting general history.

[Em Carr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dense, lots of information fast, interesting nonetheless.