Visualization of maritime empires' decline

Explained here. Critiques in the comments are (mostly) valid, but for a first effort at using this kind of visualization technique, I'd say it's pretty impressive.

More like this

Last week, Simon Davis wrote to me with questions about this cryonic brain preservation technique, which has now been published as How to Freeze Your Brain and Live Forever (Maybe). Unfortunately, my comments did not make it into the story, because, Simon politely explained, there are length…
"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught." -Oscar Wilde As many of you know, last weekend I launched a suggestion box here on the site, and I've been overwhelmed by the response: about fifty of you have sent something in…
I rarely mention here when Walt Crawford publishes a new issue of his very fine ejournal Cites & Insights, mostly because I sort of assume you all read it already. Of course, that's probably not true so I'll remedy the situation partially with this post. The most recent issue is completely (…
It was a late night in the O.R. last night; so I didn't get to spend my usual quality blogging time. However, it occurred to me. In honor of being called a "pharma moron" on Whale.to, coupled with all the antivaccination lunacy that's been infesting the comments of this blog, only to be tirelessly…

Effective but disturbingly silent - next time they should add a little elevator music.

Interesting how that was my first reaction as well - I kept upping my volume on the laptop, to no avail.

That was fascinating. It was clear that a lot of people in the comments didn't quite get what he was doing. This was an experiment in the technique, not a definitive historical essay.

His choice in calling his subject Maritime Empires confused me at first. My first thought was that it represented naval power. Overseas Empire is the English phrase that best represents what he meant.

There is plenty to nit-pick in the history. How did he pick certain dates? Where is Ireland? Why is Spain bigger than Britain at the end? I would love to see an historian take it over now and work on the details, add Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and the US.