Using Data Visualization to View History Horizontally
January 13, 2016 at 11:59 am
(This post was last modified: January 13, 2016 at 12:06 pm by Whateverist.)
This showed up in my email today. Thought it was interesting to think about how everyone is a grandparent's generation away from some while being a grandchild themselves in relation to still others. A banal fact but kind of interesting to see how quickly we move to persons who seem pretty remote historically. I've just skimmed it and studied the charts a bit so far. For what it's worth.
On the relative merits of slicing history horizontally vs vertically:
I apologize for the horrible cut and paste but I can't seem to fix it. Hopefully you'll find something to catch your eye in some of it.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/01/horizontal-history.html
Quote:
[img=231x0]http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Older-decades.png[/img]
![[Image: Decades.png]](http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Decades.png)
![[Image: Older-decades.png]](http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Older-decades.png)
On the relative merits of slicing history horizontally vs vertically:
Quote:And while vertical history has its merits, it doesn’t leave you with an especially complete picture of any one time. An econ buff in the year 2500 might know all about the Great Depression that happened in the early 20th century and the major recession that happened about 80 years later, but that same person might mistake the two world wars for happening in the 1800s or the 2200s if they’re a little hazy on the history of wars. So while an econ buff, that person would have a pretty poor understanding of what our modern times are all
about.
Likewise, I might know that Copernicus began writing his seminal work On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in Poland in the early 1510s, but by learning that right around that same time in Italy, Michaelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, I get a better picture of the times. By learning that it was right while both of these things were happening that Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon in England, the 1510s suddenly begins to take on a distinct personality. These three facts, when put together, allow me to see a more three-dimensional picture of the 1510s—it allows me to see the 1510s horizontally, like cutting out a complete segment of the vine tangle and examining it all together.
I apologize for the horrible cut and paste but I can't seem to fix it. Hopefully you'll find something to catch your eye in some of it.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/01/horizontal-history.html
