The TimeMaps Atlas of World History is a new website and, like history, is very much a work in progress. It currently covers the period 3500BC - AD200, but will soon have the Medieval and Modern World maps added, bringing the timelines up to the present day.
The TimeMaps On-line Atlas of World History
will provide:
Who is this site for?
Why study world history?
Who is creating this site?
The TimeMaps Atlas of World History is for anyone interested in history, whether in education or not.
If you do teach world history, whether in school, college or homeschool, please keep an eye on this site as we will be creating a Learning Centre with teaching resources in it - some free, some to be paid for. In the meantime, see our current education software.
If you are not in education, this Atlas is also for you. It is written for the interested (and reasonably educated) lay person rather than for the professional academic.
There are three major reasons why we should be studying world history, apart, of course, from it being a matter of plain courtesy in today's world to have some sort of informed understanding beyond our own past.
1. Making sense of today’s world.
There has never been a time when it has been more imperative for members of different cultures to understand one another. Today, a country’s threats often have an origin thousands of miles from its borders. As informed citizens, we have to understand what is going in different parts of the world.
Almost always, history will play a part in any such understanding. Being aware of other cultures’ heritage, therefore, is a big step towards understanding how today’s world works, and how issues facing us on a daily basis can be grasped better.
As this planet gets ever smaller, more under threat and more inter-connected, we are increasingly citizens of the whole world, rather than of one small slice of it. It has become clear that the welfare of one region is dependent upon the welfare of others. We really do need to understand one another, and what makes each others’ cultures “tick”. We need to know each others’ stories.
2. A broad education
An understanding of history is a vital component of a broad education. Many intelligent people would be the first to admit that they have a derisory grasp of history – even those many who have developed a keen interest in the subject since leaving school.
Many of these blame their history teachers for killing their interest while they were at school. More to the point is the narrow syllabuses that the teachers are often made to follow. Political, social and economic history is truly fascinating (no, I mean it!), but not to most teenagers.
They are made to grapple with detailed, and to them sterile, topics too early in their careers, and are steered well clear of the big picture, which they really should be learning. It is only this that will give them the broad framework into which to slot the detail later on.
Now of course it will be said that children DO study world history. But simply studying the Ancient Egyptians at the age of 10 will not do. If they can't put Ancient Egypt in its broader historical context, to learn about how its people lived is virtually pointless. Their time would be better spent studying Aesop’s fables.
3. Understanding one’s own history.
My own country, Britain, gave rise to the Industrial Revolution. Yes? No, wrong. It was indeed in Britain where steam power was first harnessed effectively, where textile factories were first mechanised, where rail locomotives were first seen. But the British engineers who brought these developments to fruition were drawing on knowledge and techniques accumulated over thousands of years, in many different parts of the world. One need only think of the invention of writing in the ancient Middle East, of paper and gunpowder in China, the discovery of the concept of zero and the decimal place in India, the preservation of Greek knowledge and the advances made in mathematics and medicine by the Arabs, to realize that technological and scientific development has been a world-wide achievement, not narrowly Western. Even within Europe, much of the British agricultural revolution which made the Industrial Revolution possible was founded on Dutch know-how.
The other side of this coin is, that I can only understand what is distinctive about my own country’s achievements if I have an awareness of the bigger picture. If one looks only at the history of England, then the evolution of common law and parliamentary democracy look like normal developments. Take a broader view, and they appear extraordinary, forcing the question – why did such things happen here and not elsewhere?
Why did the Chinese NOT have an Industrial Revolution when all the supposed pre-conditions were present when the English were trying to fend off the Vikings?
Why did Greek and Roman civilization vanish while Chinese civilization survived and flourished after the ancient era?
These and many like them are not trivial questions. I looked recently at the syllabuses of several US states, and I can guarantee that millions of American children will grow up not having the slightest idea how utterly unique have been the achievements of their country. Yes, as adults they will have a devotion to their homeland, but this will not include an informed awareness of what is distinctively precious about their heritage.
It is my firm belief that we can ONLY understand our own histories, and what is distinctive about them, when we see the broader context in which our histories are set.
There is of course a fourth reason to study world history, and much better than all the above: world history is fascinating!
The history of the world presents a huge pageant of empires, nations and civilizations as they rise and fall, interact with one another, swap ideas, seek to dominate each other, fall under the spell of vanquished civilizations. Great historical figures such as Alexander, Julius Caesar and Napoleon are thrown up by the warp and weft of events, and for a brief period march across the stage in colourful splendour. Other great men have a more enduring effect on the inner lives of millions – the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus of Nazareth, Muhammad. Different regions have quite different histories, but all share underlying characteristics caused by the greed and goodness of man. The history of the world is endlessly fascinating, full of drama, colour and interest. We all need to discover it.
Peter Britton
WHO IS CREATING THE SITE?
Editor
This Atlas and its accompanying software package, Interactive Map of World History, is being developed by a small team of historians, cartographers, designers and programmers, with advice from Ben Walsh and Alf Wilkinson, two of the UK's best-known history educators. This team is made up of:
Peter Britton (History Content)
Alex Kent (Cartography)
Penny Johnson (Project Management)
Gooii Ltd (Design and Programming)
The team started work on the TimeMaps project in 2002. The first product was a CD-ROM entitled The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany, which came out in 2004, and the second was The Interactive Map of World History, which came out in 2006.
The team is now focussing on creating this Atlas and continuing to develop its related product, the Interactive Map of World History.
The idea of putting up so much information free on the web is very appealing. In particular, Peter is very keen to promote the study and teaching of world history, and would love to see this website as a major channel for this.
Peter Britton
After a period doing postgraduate research at Durham University, England (Third Century AD Roman history – absolutely fascinating; it’s when the Roman Empire …. oh, sorry, better get on), he had a career in educational librarianship and history teaching. For the past twenty years, however, he has been involved in publishing history software. He has been responsible for producing a wide range of online history resources for different companies and organizations, for the demanding and rigorous UK schools and colleges market.
As well as working on this atlas, Peter is currently working as a freelance consultant with E2BN, one of the UK's leading broadband consortia, on various projects, such as the timeline of world history that had its first public outing at the January 2008 BETT show, in London.
Some of the products Peter has previously published are:
For some press reviews about the most recent software in leading British online and off-line education journals, please see the following:
TEEM Review of Interactive Map of World History
TEEM Review of Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany
Evaluate Review of Interactive Map of World History
This TimeMaps Atlas of World History is based on work done for our forthcoming full version of Interactive Map of World History. This in turn has grown out of a project to address concerns held by the Department for Education in England, that children were learning about particular topics in some depth – the Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Rome, Explorers and Discoverers, for example – but did not acquire any solid knowledge of the “bigger picture”. They had little overall chronological awareness, often not being able to tell (from the above list of topics, say) who came first – the Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Romans or Explorers!
The Interactive Map of World History was designed to help children gain such an understanding, and this online Atlas will do the same for older students.
Alex Kent
Alex is a lecturer in cartography at Southampton University. Prior to this, he worked on major GIS and mapping projects for such clients as the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies; Action Contrè la Faim in Colombo, Sri Lanka; Appian Way Software, England; and the XYZ Digital Mapping Company, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is also the editor of the Bulletin of the Society of Cartographers and an assistant editor for The Cartographic Journal.
He has a doctorate in mapping from Canterbury Christchurch University, Kent, England, and for his thesis he was the Winner of the National Geographic Award, 2007.
Interestingly (and worryingly), when travelling to our meetings, which we hold in various locations, he often gets lost.
Penny Johnson
Penny is a freelance project manager. She works for a variety of companies and organisations, and currently is doing a lot of work for one of the UK's leading educational broadband consortia, E2BN.
Gooii Ltd
Gooii is a company that specialises in designing and programming digital assets, mostly for the UK education market. Its clients include E2BN, the educational broadband consortium, and the National Education Network (NEN), the umbrella organisation for all the UK's educational broadband consortia.
TimeMaps Ltd is a history education software publisher which, together with its predecessor Appian Way Software, has been in existence since 1998. It was set up by Peter Britton. Currently, we are busy ensuring the smooth release of the new Timemaps World History Atlas in September.
Find out what's going on behind the scenes at TimeMaps: what are our current plans, when are new maps and articles due for release, what other improvements we are making for the site and much more.. [go]
