208 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
Drawn in July 1941, the map captures the
harrowing moment when the German invasion of the
Soviet Union left the British alone to fight the Axis.
In August, Roosevelt met with Churchill to forge an
alliance, but the United States was not yet at war, and
many Americans continued to believe that the oceans
protected them from these foreign crises. With this
map, Harrison showed Americans how close these
conflicts were, and in the process buttressed support
for the recent Lend-Lease program of aid to Britain.
With orange lines underscoring the web of American
involvement, Harrison made it impossible to dismiss
the war as a purely European affair. Moreover, his
accessible explanation in the upper left corner
helped to demystify the concept of map projections.
In this realigned world, the United States lay at the
heart of the conflict, not at its periphery. A perennial
bestseller, the map was updated and reissued
throughout the war.
Once Congress had declared war on Japan and
Germany, Harrison’s maps seemed prescient, and
their popularity grew even further. They imaginatively
and persuasively captured a world disrupted by
both war and aviation. His Look at the World atlas—
specifically designed to explain wartime strategy—
sold out before it even reached bookstores. The Army
and Navy reprinted 250,000 copies of Harrison’s
maps for servicemen abroad. His perspective maps
were used to expose bomber pilots to aerial views of
European and Asian terrain. Dozens of corporations,
newspapers, civic organizations, citizens, and towns
wrote to Harrison in praise of his iconoclastic and
visually provocative style, which was widely imitated
during and after the war.
But in each of Harrison’s riveting maps, accuracy
in one area came at the expense of inaccuracy
elsewhere. Most professional geographers welcomed
Harrison’s ability to capture the public’s attention
and to foster a more global sensibility. However,
some bristled at a pictorial approach that seemed
to prize design over mathematical precision. Such
criticisms did not faze Harrison. He proudly identified
as an artist—not a mapmaker—and believed that
his training in architecture and design gave him the
critical distance to disrupt static views of geography.
The widespread imitation of his maps confirms
that Americans were willing to reconsider their
understanding of world geography and their place
within it.