Vintage Geography eTextbooks

[Hunter]

I am finding some adorable and amazingly still relevant vintage geography textbooks, but they are SO politically incorrect. Just SHOCKING and sometimes hysterical.

 

Did you know that living in the tropics will make you languid and indolent. If you move to the arctic, it makes you stupid and inactive :-0

http://books.google.com/books?id=nY0TZF8aYUgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

And white man is superior to all other races. Yeh, right.

 

And the word savage instead of hunter-gatherer, and barbarian for basic agriculture is just NOT what I would want to see any modern children repeating.

 

I'm amazed at how relevant some of the books still are, though. It would be interesting to see someone update some of them.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Hunter

[stripe]

I agree -- there's an old one from the state of CA that has some really nice basic info, and then veers into the racist diatribe, I found an ABC of different ethnic groups today:

 

This Arab is upset, I fear;

Look at his pretty shield and spear.

He's stuck two pistols in his sash,

And, dear me, how his eyes do flash!

 

This Kaffir looks a trifle sly...

 

If he [Mexican boy] should see an old grey goose

Or a young turkey running loose,

You may be pretty certain that

He'd catch it with his lariat.

 

The French can cook, and fence, and dance,

They're fond of shouting "Long live France!"

...

They shave their poodles, drink much wine,

 

 

...But my favorite is he Boer:

Although he does not wear a tie

He's just as white as you or I,

And just as fond of cake and fruit;

The difference is that he can shoot.

Edited February 1, 2012 by stripe

[HejKatt]

There's also a series by Vernon Quinn, although I can't vouch for the PC-ness of the language. If you search Google Books, the titles begin with "Picture map geography of the <region>".

 

Joseph Russell Smith also has a series, and I was glad to get one for 25 cents at a library sale :). These vintage texts trade off glossy pictures for more text and b&w pictures, but I find them very readable.