In 1931, John D Sparks produced a truly inspirational infographic – a huge chart showing the rise and fall of different civilisations over the past 4000 years. I came across it again the other day and was awestruck by how cleverly it contextualises different historical events – not to mention realising how limited my knowledge is. I sure wish I’d been given a copy when I was wading through Bismarck etc in A-level History back in the ’80s.
Whilst looking for an updated version (i.e. up to the end of the twentieth century), I found this engaging animation of the original histomap http://intuitionanalytics.com/other/histomap/. Turns out the updated version by Rand Mcnally is available (at a price) but inevitably there’s more noise and less historical perspective on more recent events – so I will stick with the 1931 original!
Found at http://www.newatlantis.com, and copyright John D Sparks
Gareth Lloyd 