"The Histomap" by John B. Sparks, published 1931
"The Histomap" by John B. Sparks, published 1931
It is certainly not perfect, but still an impressive piece of work.
And here is a version embedded in a web page so it scales to your browser window's width.
Not a historian but i feel like this map exaggerates the strength of the roman empire and underestimates the strength of the Mongolian/Chinese/Indian empires. Id love to know more though if you guys have more info
I think that's a fair criticism. It seems very Euro-centric to me.
I didn't see anything about some of the large and wealthy African empires like Mali or Benin.
First off, that's awesome.
Second off, it reads like the end of a Civilization game, score, events and all.
I mean it's a fact I've known previously but to see the Chinese empire never end is actually crazy and impressive.
It's good branding. "China," as we think of it, fragmented into states that recombinated into different versions of what they each claimed to be the rightful empire, many, many times. It's like a ship of thesius thought experiment, almost, but sometimes the boat is a pile of wood, sometimes it's a galleon, other times it's a fleet of smaller boats.
And sometimes it's Turkish. (Sorta)
Source: degree in Song Dynasty era Chinese history. (It's a long story)
The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.
-Romance of the Three Kingdoms
So a bit like the holy Roman empire?
It's against my political philosophy to say this about a monarchy but it makes me kind of sad it's gone. The world feels smaller without these sorts of things.
That is so cool! I just bought a print on Etsy. It's 12"x60". Can't wait to put it on my wall.
No one would have predicted what came next
Where is Africa?
For anyone interested, I’d highly suggest the useful charts YouTube channel,