The Post War-New World Map created by Maurice Gomberg in October 1941, but not published until 1942, provided the world with a new and intriguing prediction of the world would look once the dust from world war two settled. While Gomberg created the map as a personal project, it quickly became nationally recognized and was picked up by the Library of Congress.
The purpose of the map is to predict how the world will look after WW2, and to show how the organization of the new world differs from that of the old. Gomberg proposed a new world with 14 sovereign states– compared to the 63 at the time–13 of which would be democracies, 10 demilitarized, and 3 quarantined states–Japan, Italy and Germany (Axis powers). The USA, USSR, and British Commonwealth of Nations would be the three main powers and would act as the world police. Gomberg also included a list of 41 statements which state the New Moral Order after the war: create permanent peace, freedom, justice, security, and world reconstruction. Gomberg incorporated quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, which can be viewed as propaganda for the war efforts.
This map has a strong sense of American identity. In Gomberg’s proposal, the United States would gain all of Canada, Mexico, Central America and several smaller territories throughout the world. The new U.S. would span across the entire globe, thus demonstrating the US world dominance. This is similar to the British Empire of the early 1900’s, and the saying “the sun never sets on the British Empire”, could simply be changed to “the sun never sets on the Americans.
Gomberg was extremely delusional and unrealistic with his goals for the New World, and there are many potential complications that he didn’t account for. First, he didn’t anticipate the coming friction between USSR and USA political viewpoints. During the cold war, tensions were high between the two world powers. If Gomberg’s organization of the world had come to fruition, both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would gain significant amounts of territory, making another global conflict inevitable. Also, he simply grouped entire continents together, without considering the repercussions of such a drastic action. This is similar to the partition of Africa in the late 1800’s. However, in this case the nations that Gomberg is attempting to group together have the means to mount a resistance against any invaders. Plus, it is very unlikely that after years of fighting, the allied powers would be willing to use their militaries for another campaign, just to reorganize the geographic landscape of continents that they don’t have any stake in.
-By Kim Kiess and Luke Salvati
Moriarty, Thomas. “The Post War II New World Order Map: A Proposal to Rearrange the World after and Allied Victory.” Global Research. Org. N.p., 12 June 2010. Web.