On: Animated map of 5000 years of empires that controlled the Middle East

[pg]

Even if you have no idea what these different empires were, it's interesting to see the pattern of conquests in this region. And if you do know what most of them were, it's fascinating to see things usually covered in different books all together one after another.

The main fault I'd find with this is that time doesn't flow at a constant rate. Also it would be interesting to watch the way territories shrank as well as the way they expanded.

[ivankirigin → pg]

Showing all the territories, as they expand and contract, would be much more information. Also, the smooth growth of empires just isn't the way it happens. The quick snaps of change would be both more accurate and dramatic.

The time constant is an interesting aspect. If it were tunable, you might get bored in the past and overwhelmed as time progressed to modernity.

Globally, it would be interesting to see colonization through the end of the cold war.

Another interesting map might be a heat map of home prices over an area like NYC's 5 boroughs. Lots of people treat gentrification like some kind of war, so using a similar visualization would be appropriate.

Another map that would be interesting, even over the same time period and region, is total or per capita wealth within an empire. The best visualization would involve the area of the territory shrinking or growing like these scaled cartograms: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/countycart3070l...

update: Normalizing wealth per capita by the number of slaves would be an interesting measure ancient productivity

[Kaizyn → ivankirigin]

What an excellent idea. One problem: what records do you suggest we use that shows the breakdown by empire of the total and per capita ownership of slaves?

[ivankirigin → Kaizyn]

The populations are roughly known. In the roman empire, I think the numbers were something around 1:2:2 for citizens, regulars, and slaves. It's also difficult to measure wealth. Should we use gold?

Rate of technological advancement would probably be the best measure.

There are a fair number of records from ancient times, with huge holes.

[culley → pg]

I just spent 2 hours learning about whole empires that I had never heard of. Joys of a great american education.

[ivankirigin → culley]

"Joys of a great american education."

I learned about all of those listed in a public high school AP European History class.

The generalizations about American education are a bit broad. It's fair to say it is extremely unevenly distributed. It's also fair to say the US has the best university system in the world. Just look at where people try to go to study.

[kajecounterhack → ivankirigin]

I agree, I learned all about these in school.

I also learned about a fair number of them from church...