Review zu: Dimitris Ballas, Danny Droling and Benjamin Hennig, The social atlas of Europe

The Social Atlas of Europe, as the title suggests, takes on a job of mapping social issues in Europe using mainly cartograms. The book includes the European Union (EU) member and candidate countries as well as the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen countries. The thematic coverage is as impressive as the geographic coverage: identity and culture, education, employment, industry and occupation, health, politics, economics, environment, social cohesion and policy; 21 different data sources are listed, among which EU-related official statistics appear to dominate, but the authors also make use of specific studies such as the European Values Survey1 or the very general ones such as the CIA World Factbook2, and occasionally Wikipedia or various newspapers and organizations.