I feel it necessary to give voice to a preoccupation of mine that has carried over from my professional duties, with hopes of reaching an audience not ordinarily acquainted with these cartographic squabbles.
The copy of the map shown here sat atop the papers on my desk when I arrived this morning. It is a typical example of U.S. central intelligence agency maps of the post-Soviet republics. Unfortunately, it is also an urgent reminder of the poor state of affairs regarding the availability of accurate maps of good quality for the English-speaking world.
In the middle 1990's it seems that many of the U.S. schools and libraries were dumped upon by this agency of intelligence with such hastily prepared maps. Many documents not of sensitive or classified status (oftentimes educational or propagandistic publications) were deemed undeserving of the costly process of destruction: we can see the form they have taken as an insidious gift to the nation's citizenry.
What's more, the recent ascent of the latest cinematographic work by our Roumanian neighbors has earned their fine films much deserved esteem in "world cinema" circles in the West and has aroused a new and unprecedented interest in our region.
What can we do to stem the tide of misinformation and the air of disrepute which hangs about our image as a people at such a crucial time as this?