A fascinating chart covering 4'000 years

[DennisN]

I heard about a chart today which I knew I immediately had to check.
It's called the Histomap (by Rand McNally) and cleverly shows the evolution of the powers of empires, nations and states throughout 4'000 years.

Rand McNally, best known for their maps, atlases and globes, published “The Histomap: Four Thousand Years of World History” in 1931. [...]
The map measured 5’2″ tall. It was intended to “[dramatize] the great adventure of mankind.”

Here is an article about it, including the "histomap":

“The Histomap: 4000 Years of World History” is the Story of Civilization

 

[Hornbein]

I heard about a chart today which I knew I immediately had to check.
It's called the Histomap (by Rand McNally) and cleverly shows the evolution of the powers of empires, nations and states throughout 4'000 years.



Here is an article about, including the "histomap":

“The Histomap: 4000 Years of World History” is the Story of Civilization

View attachment 348430

That is quite something. I do wonder what their horizontal scale is. The Roman Empire was never that big, neither in population nor in area.

 

[fresh_42]

That is quite something. I do wonder what their horizontal scale is. The Roman Empire was never that big, neither in population nor in area.

1931!

Means: Euro-centristic with a bit of the Asian big ones only, i.e. those involved in European history like the Mesopotamians and the Persians, plus India and China.

The Roman Empire had the entire Mediterranean Sea, and basically all of Europe. What did you expect? Sweden at that time? Skyths? Alans? Turks? It is correct to draw the Roman Empire that big given the overall selection and the fact that all small societies have been neglected anyway. Economic power would be a good hypothesis for the horizontal scale, and / or political influence.

 

[phinds]

I do wonder what their horizontal scale is.

Seems clear that there is no "scale" per se, it's just a showing of RELATIVE strength of the various civilizations of each time period.

 

[Hornbein]

1931!

Means: Euro-centristic with a bit of the Asian big ones only, i.e. those involved in European history like the Mesopotamians and the Persians, plus India and China.

The Roman Empire had the entire Mediterranean Sea, and basically all of Europe. What did you expect?

I expect China and India. According to the Histomap in 50 BC the Roman empire had 60% of whatever it is that they are measuring. According to Wikipedia China and India each had 30% of world population while all of Europe was 15%.

I find your tone aggressive and disrespectful.

 

[fresh_42]

I expect China and India. According to the Histomap in 50 BC the Roman empire had 60% of whatever it is that they are measuring. According to Wikipedia China and India each had 30% of world population while all of Europe was 15%.

I find your tone aggressive and disrespectful.

I am only of a different opinion than you. The selection as a whole is problematic and I blamed it on the year of origin. South America is more than a bit neglected in my mind. What made the Egyptians so large? You picked deliberately one example and said it was wrong without even trying to understand the circumstances, or possible explanations different from population and size. And, yes, I was a bit angry about stating that ...

The Roman Empire was never that big, neither in population nor in area.

... as a fact. A very wrong statement in my opinion. What do you compare the size with? The Mongolian steppe? Who reigned there at the time? I tried to relate the size to the size of what has been selected at all plus economic factors. You just said it was wrong and left.

 

[Hornbein]

I expect China and India. According to the Histomap in 50 BC the Roman empire had 60% of whatever it is that they are measuring. According to Wikipedia China and India each had 30% of world population while all of Europe was 15%.

If you evaluate a Roman as having three times the value of a Chinese or Indian then the math works out. For 1931 that may have been a liberal view.

 

[fresh_42]

Here is the image from Wikipedia:

and we have to include the entire sea plus some regions outside because of trade. I find this is quite big, and a lot of people - at least compared to the entire population of Europe at that time ca. 110 AD.

 

[fresh_42]

If you evaluate a Roman as having five times the value of an Asian then the math works out. 1931...

Yes, Asian is underrepresented, as is South America. And Africa has been ignored until today, except for Egypt which "gifted" too many things to the British Museum to be ignored. As I already said, I assume that trade volume within and with Europe would be a better hypothesis than size or population. The map represents what is taught in European history classes.

Wiki says China is 5,500 times 5,200. Hadrian's wall to Agadir is 2,800 and Lisboa to Bagdad 4,800. So China is roughly twice the size. But China didn't play a significant role 110 AD from a European perspective. So if at all, then the historically narrowed view in the first half of last century, when colonialism still played a major role could be criticized. But it was as it was and some consequences are yet to overcome.

The Inka had roughly 1 million sq.km. and can barely be seen on that map.

 

[DennisN]

Economic power would be a good hypothesis for the horizontal scale, and / or political influence.

I have just found the chart and have not looked for info on what data is behind the chart partition, which would be interesting to know.

I just got fascinated by the clever idea how to chart the evolution of empires/nations/states.
I have never seen anything like it before.

 

[Hornbein]

The Histomap shows maximal Roman size at 50 BC so that's the date I'll focus on. The Histomap shows Rome as having eight times of whatever they were valuing than does Han China. Let's compare their geographical areas. Here's a map of close to that time that contains a legend.

According to an Internet search the maximum extent of the Roman Empire was in about 150 AD and amounted to two million square miles. That included areas conquered to the east. So lets say the 14 AD map shows 1.7 million square miles. They say Han China was a million square miles. To get the result shown on the Histomap you have to say a Roman square mile is worth five times a Han square mile. Again, not bad for 1931.

So what do I think the best scale choice would have been? At the time the limiting factor was food. Production of the calories needed for the population to survive. That should be pretty close to the population numbers. Indeed I would expect that the population estimates came from records of food production. That was what was taxed so governments kept more or less accurate records of that. So I'd go with the population numbers we have. Han eastern China had and likely still has considerable fertile loess soil while western Europe, northern Africa, and Asia minor are no great shakes in the soil department. This explains why Han China could have twice the population of the Roman Empire while holding half the territory.

Note that Europe is today considered to have ten million square miles. The Romans conquered at most a sixth of this.

 

[Frabjous]

If you evaluate a Roman as having three times the value of a Chinese or Indian then the math works out. For 1931 that may have been a liberal view.

To get the result shown on the Histomap you have to say a Roman square mile is worth five times a Han square mile. Again, not bad for 1931.

No you don’t, because that is not what the map is plotting. See post #4. Western civilization has not always gotten it right, but if you are going to reflexively scream racism, get your facts right.

There is a clearly a western bias to the map.

 

[Hornbein]

No you don’t, because that is not what the map is plotting. See post #4. Western civilization has not always gotten it right, but if you are going to reflexively scream racism, get your facts right.

There is a clearly a western bias to the map.

"if you are going to reflexively scream racism, get your facts right."

I find this highly insulting.

 

[Frabjous]

"if you are going to reflexively scream racism, get your facts right."

I find this highly insulting.

Yes it is.

 

[DennisN]

I looked at the chart again today and made two interesting observations:

• Only two civilizations span the entire period of 4'000 years: The Chinese and the Indian.
• The Mongolian civilization looks pretty interesting. It has two long evolutions, one between 2000 BCE and 700 CE, and then another between 1000 CE and 1850 CE. * (see edit below)

I think regardless of the validity of the chart, it is interesting since it gives something to think about.
And discuss.

* Edit:
No, those two yellow chunks in the chart represent Mongolians, Huns and Tartars.

 

[fresh_42]

Note that Europe is today considered to have ten million square miles. The Romans conquered at most a sixth of this.

That is a very misleading point of view. 7 million square miles of Europe were completely irrelevant in 110 AD. One cannot take size as a relevant denominator. That way we would get a map with a white string of 95% width labeled "others".