Forum: Reviews and Comments: National Atlas of Georgia

Summary

This forum contains two book reviews. The first reviews the National Atlas of Georgia (English edition), a comprehensively revised and expanded version of the 2012 Georgian-language atlas, produced through cooperation between Georgian and German geographers. The atlas covers physical geography (geology, geomorphology, climate, hydrology, soils, vegetation), socio-economic themes, history, and religion, incorporating 2014 census data and updates to 2016. The reviewer highlights its value in illustrating Georgia's natural diversity, seismic hazards, climatic boundaries, and soil terminology, while noting limitations such as the relatively small socio-economic map section and insufficient explanations for some symbols. Overall, it is praised as a major cartographic and editorial achievement. The second review examines the Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, which brings together 35 contributions in seven sections. The handbook reflects a paradigm shift in borderland studies from legal-political demarcation towards themes of violence, gender, militarism, mobility, livelihoods, and commodities in post-Cold War globalization. The reviewer commends its conceptual innovation and argues that it offers fresh perspectives on Asian borderlands. Both reviews offer critical assessments of the works' content, contributions, and shortcomings from an academic standpoint.