omnia mea mecum fero

If time is a river, the Histomap, first published by Rand McNally back in 1931, is a raging Mississippi. In that massive river of time, each of humanity’s great civilizations becomes a confluence that ebbs, wanes, and sometimes ebbs again, each a separate current in a river that inexorably rages down to the mouth of the present day.

Although certainly not modern, the Histomap is still a breathtaking example of good infographic design: A five-foot, roll-up chart that can fit an overview of human history on any wall. Starting in 2000 B.C. with seven different civilizations--the Aegeans, the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Iranians, the Indians, the Huns, and the Chinese--you travel forward or backward in time as your eyes move up or down 0.75 inches. Some civilizations bleed together, others are swallowed up; some surge, others crash...

Via Lauren Moss

A visual history of human sensemaking, from cave paintings to the world wide web.

Since the dawn of recorded history, we’ve been using visual depictions to map the earth, order the heavens, make sense of time, dissect the human body, organize the natural world, perform music, and even decorate abstract concepts like consciousness and love.

100 Diagrams That Changed the World by investigative journalist and documentarian Scott Christianson chronicles the history of our evolving understanding of the world through humanity’s most groundbreaking sketches, illustrations, and drawings, ranging from cave paintings to The Rosetta Stone to Moses Harris’s color wheel to Tim Berners-Lee’s flowchart for a “mesh” information management system, the original blueprint for the world wide web.

But most noteworthy of all is the way in which these diagrams bespeak an essential part of culture — the awareness that everything builds on what came before, that creativity is combinational, and that the most radical innovations harness the cross-pollination of disciplines.

Via Lauren Moss