Cartographies of Time

A History of the Timeline

Recommended by Ann Blair, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #19 in Map

What does history look like? How do you draw time?

From the most ancient images to the contemporary, the line has served as the central figure in the representation of time. The linear metaphor is ubiquitous in everyday visual representations of time—in almanacs, calendars, charts, and graphs of all sorts. Even our everyday speech is filled with talk of time having a "before" and an "after" or being "long" and "short." The timeline is such a familiar part of our mental furniture that it is sometimes hard to remember that we invented it in the first place. And yet, in its modern...
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Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Cartographies of Time from the world's leading experts.

Ann Blair This is a beautiful book, wonderfully illustrated with a plethora of examples of how historical time has been visualised across a broad chronological span. The notion of visually representing the passage of time dates back to antiquity. The chapter on Eusebius – how in the fourth century he used tables to match up the biblical account of time with ancient history – is fascinating. In the Middle Ages genealogies were often displayed on parchment scrolls, using variations on the tree theme. So there is a tremendously long tradition of tabular representations of time. (Source)


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