20th century globes

For Christmas 1989, I got my first globe as a present.  Super educational!

Christmas 1989
The other presents in the picture are a jigsaw and two sets of hair accessories, all of which I also still have.

However, you don’t have to be a specialist historian to be aware that 1989 was a bit of a transitional year in world politics, to put it mildly, and so unfortunately my poor little globe was already out of date by the time I got it!

Here it is today (yes, obviously I still have it), complete with its depiction of the USSR and two separate Germanies:

1980s globe
1980s Eurasia, immortalised in a childhood Christmas present.

Perhaps so that I would have an up-to-date globe (that is not at all true – it was so that I would have a desk lamp for my homework), Mum and Dad then bought me this light-up globe lamp (labelled 1992) in the early ’90s:

1990s globe lamp
It’s also dotted with pictures of historical explorers and the dates they were active, which as a kid I found much more interesting than the actual map.

Obviously the 1992 globe is now itself slightly outdated (as you can see, it’s only got one Sudan – see this Wikipedia list for more examples), but for grown-up me as a 20th century throwback, that’s part of its charm.

I’ve occasionally considered starting a collection of even earlier 20th century globes, but given current constraints on house space, that’s probably not a good idea.

Maybe when I’m a very old lady, I’ll get an up-to-date one just to see how much has changed over the course of my lifetime!

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