This illustration, published by American cartoonist David Horsey in 1987 for the Seattle Post Intelligencer, satirically depicts the worldview of Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States.
The map focuses on the great division of the world caused by the Cold War, with large representations of both the Soviet Union, featuring a caricature of Mikhail Gorbachev, and the United States, featuring another caricature of Ronald Reagan.
Some of the details worth noting on the map:
- Europe is labelled as “socialists and cowardly pacifists”.
- Europe is littered with missiles on both sides of the Iron Curtain, making it clear which ones are “ours” and which ones are “theirs”.
- Poland bears the label “Solidarity” in reference to the trade union led by Lech Wałęsa that stood up to the Polish government and the influence of the Soviet Union.
- North Africa is titled “Libyan Terrorists” and features a caricature of Muammar Gaddafi.
- China and Southeast Asia are referred to as “good communists and great chow mein”, the name of a Chinese dish that is very popular in the United States.
- Central America is referred to as the “Country of Contras”. Contras was the counter-revolutionary organisation that had received US support against the revolution in Nicaragua, led by Daniel Ortega, who also appears in a cartoon alongside Central America.
- The Arabian Peninsula is labelled as “our oil”.
- Iran and Pakistan are branded as “mad Muslims”.
Horsey's creation attempts to show Reagan's bias against enemies, but also by being politically incorrect with all of America's allies.
The map is an update of another map of the same name published by Horsey in 1982. The main differences between the two are the replacement of Leonid Brezhnev with Mikhail Gorbachev and the addition of portraits of Thatcher, Ortega and Gaddafi.
Sources
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