The Entire History of the World—Really, All of It—Distilled Into a Single Gorgeous Chart (1931)

[Hestia]

This “Histomap,” created by John B. Sparks, was first printed by Rand McNally in 1931. (The David Rumsey Map Collection hosts a fully zoomable version here.) (Update: Click on the image below to arrive at a bigger version.)
This giant, ambitious chart fit neatly with a trend in nonfiction book publishing of the 1920s and 1930s: the “outline,” in which large subjects (the history of the world! every school of philosophy! all of modern physics!) were distilled into a form comprehensible to the most uneducated layman.

The 5-foot-long Histomap was sold for $1 and folded into a green cover, which featured endorsements from historians and reviewers. The chart was advertised as “clear, vivid, and shorn of elaboration,” while at the same time capable of “holding you enthralled” by presenting:

the actual picture of the march of civilization, from the mud huts of the ancients thru the monarchistic glamour of the middle ages to the living panorama of life in present day America.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/08/12/the_1931_histomap_the_entire_history_of_the_world_distilled_into_a_single.html?wpisrc=obinsite
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The interactive timeline is fantastic. It's interesting to see how the various countries and rulers weave in and out of history. I do hope this has not posted before - couldn't find the thread if it has.

I'll bet this is something in actual print.

[Xipe Totec]

1. History of the Old World

I see no Olmecs, Chichimecs, Zapotecs, Otomí, Mexica, Inca, Navajo, Apache, Yaqui, Inuit, Algonquin...

Shall I go on?

[shraby]

2. There isn't exactly a written record of the history of the people you name.

[Xipe Totec]

4. Really? On who's paltry library are there no written records?

I haven't heard of them so they don't exist? Is that it?

[shraby]

19. They exist, but most didn't have a written language and those that did, the early churches destroyed

what they had written down.

[Xipe Totec]

20. Thanks, that explains a lot

Truly.


Regarding languages:

Mesoamerican languages are the languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. The area is characterized by extensive linguistic diversity containing several hundred different languages and seven major language families. Mesoamerica is also an area of high linguistic diffusion in that long-term interaction among speakers of different languages through several millennia has resulted in the convergence of certain linguistic traits across disparate language families. The Mesoamerican sprachbund is commonly referred to as the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.

The languages of Mesoamerica were also among the first to evolve independent traditions of writing. The oldest texts date to approximately 1000 B.C.E. while most texts in the indigenous scripts (such as Maya) date to ca. 600–900 CE. Following the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, and continuing up until the 19th century, most Mesoamerican languages were written in Latin script.

The languages of Mesoamerica belong to 6 major families – Mayan, Oto-Mangue, Mixe–Zoque, Totonacan, Uto-Aztecan and Chibchan languages (only on the southern border of the area) – as well as a few smaller families and isolates – P'urhépecha (Tarascan), Huave, Tequistlatec and Misumalpan. Among these Oto-Manguean and Mayan families account for the largest numbers of speakers by far – each having speakers numbering more than a million. Many Mesoamerican languages today are either endangered or already extinct, but others, including the Mayan languages, Nahuatl, Mixtec and Zapotec, have several hundred thousand speakers and remain viable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_languages


"In no other major civilization do self-regard, self-congratulation and denigration of the ‘Other’ run as deep, nor have these tendencies infected as many aspects of their thinking, laws, and policy, as they have in the West and its overseas extensions."

- Edgar Alfred Bowring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocentrism

[BainsBane]

21. Some did. The Mexica, or Aztecs did

and the Spanish had them transcribe some of their own history into the Florentine Codex.

[jaysunb]

5. No Africans either.....n/t

[Xipe Totec]

11. Yea, they didn't get much free time to write their memoirs

Or to learn to read or write, for that matter.

[limpyhobbler]

7. I noticed this too.

There are a few Inca, Maya, and Aztec on the left-hand side between about 1000-1500 AD.

Probably could be more though.

[Trajan]

8. The map was made in 1931 ...

While it doesn't comprise a comprehensive, all inclusive history, it's still pretty damned cool ...

However ... Some will be angry, because people get angry ... and they like that ... the anger ...

[Xipe Totec]

9. Grrr!

Add me to the list of easily enraged.

[Xipe Totec]

10. Mexico a Traves de los Siglos (Mexico through the Centuries) was published in 1884

I have a copy of the 1936 edition.

All 5 volumes, each about the size of the New York Phone Book, back when They printed the New York phone book.


http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9xico_a_trav%C3%A9s_de_los_siglos

[boomer55]

3. Pretty cool but I see nothing of North, Central or South America Native peoples n/t

[Igel]

17. Lower left hand side.

Orange.

The rise of the states known at the time, as known at the time. Then they all but vanish and are compressed into the black line on the left of the chart, only to resurface as South America. Since the writing system hadn't been cracked, there's not a whole lot of detail.

The chart lists powers (nations or groups) current as of 1931 and their relative importance/strength--and traces them back. If a civilization--say, Egypt--vanishes by absorption, it's shown as vanishing by absorption.

There were no African powers apart from perhaps Egypt. Colonialism made that clear. There were no independent "Native peoples" states, either--they were the various South American countries, an amalgam of recent, not quite so recent, and very much not recent immigrants.

It is what it says to be, and if somebody wants something different they're free to create it. But it was also created in the late '20s and probably 1930, and expecting it to reflect later attitudes is simply unrealistic.

[SteveG]

18. In 1931

very little was known of the Aztec, Maya, Inca, Olmecs. We were just discovering their cities and being forced to take another look at the writings of the early spaniards who conquered these peoples in a more objective light.

[Scuba]

6. Will this be on the test?

Seriously, despite it's euro-centric view, it's interesting and I'm glad you posted it.

[progressoid]

12. It’s unclear what the width of the colored streams is meant to indicate.

[Jim Lane]

13. The top of the chart says "Relative Power of Contemporary States, Nations and Empires"

I would say width is an assessment, necessarily somewhat subjective, of relative power.

For example, the Roman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent early in the second century A.D., under Trajan, and the chart notes "Roman Empire at its greatest extent" around that time. Nevertheless, the Empire's band on the chart is wider around 50 B.C. The rise of the Goths meant that Rome had less relative power at the later date, even though it had more territory.

[Stardust]

14. It's definitely in print -- I used to have one. nt

[dipsydoodle]

15. Good illustration of classic history.

[MisterP]

16. the 20s and 30s were the heyday of Big History--Tonybee and Spengler's grand graphs and narratives

(of course it's not gonna look much past the Zagros)

there's also one for the 19th-c. US parties and the 50s and 60s Space Race
http://www.historyshots.com/

[BainsBane]

22. Firstly, any notion that you can tell or contain all of history

conceives of the discipline in extremely narrow terms. Also the 1930s was well before the proliferation of social history, so most of what we now think of as history was ignored.