Project GutenbergThe Entire History of the World—Really, All of It—Distilled Into a Single Gorgeous Chart
In 1931, John B. Sparks created the Histomap, condensing more than 4,000 years of world history into a vibrant infographic.
By Rebecca Onion (from the archives)
sheislaurence@gutenberg_org for 1931 it is a great effort for a Western man, but hardly a 'history of the world', given it is missing 2 continents (South America appearing in 1800s?) and most of Africa. Also what is interesting is what constitutes #history is it defined by #wars? That is such a reductive way of seeing it. At least he tried with some references to 'art' (passing judgement on 'proper') but what about science, peace, prosperity?
Mab_813Reminds me of the time I opened a book about the history of subsaharan Africa and the first sentence was "History in subsaharan Africa started when Europeans arrived" (yes, that book was written by european historians).
Dziadek@Mab_813 @sheislaurence @gutenberg_org
One of the many abominations of the colonisers hold on history. My pet hate is the fact that so many believe that white men “discovered” so much of Africa, when all they did was pitch up at a place and grab it from the local population, along with all the raw materials and large swathes of the population and claim it as their own.
Of course these authors didn't think they were racist at all. They are white european historians and therefore entirely objective, unlike those anti-colonialist writers who bring their ideology into everything!
They followed a definition of "history" that only includes written sources and they thought it was completely valid to subject all other continents to this european definition - and just declare that regions where written sources came later than in Europe were lagging behind when it comes to "having history".