Ultimate Atlas: Logbook of Spaceship Earth

With Ultimate Atlas, Theo Deutinger—architect, designer and author of the acclaimed Handbook of Tyranny— illustrates the basic data of Earth and its inhabitants to create a total portrait of the planet. How can we keep track of everything that happens on the Earth? How can we share this information with its inhabitants, despite their different languages and cultural backgrounds? Expanding on the visions of Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, Ultimate Atlas answers these questions by radically levelling graphic data.

Breaking down planet earth into 12 sections, the book gives a page spread to information pertaining to themes like ethnic groups, religions, nuclear warheads, and number of motor vehicles per country. The white pages of the book are divided by vertical black lines, in decreasing percentages from left to right.

In this way Ultimate Atlas charts the planet with an impressive simplicity and clarity. The territorial size of Earth’s countries; the planet’s most commonly spoken languages; the places where the most chickens are raised; all this information is lucidly displayed for ready comprehension. Here is truly “planet earth in a book.”