From the standpoint of having been a student and a teacher of history, I have always found the maps used for history classes to be unsatisfactory. It was always a hard sell to other students to ‘see’ what I was talking about…on a map. The fact is that maps are considered to be worthwhile adjuncts and tools for a history class especially when trying to cover a particular episode in history in which things changed in the map (you might see some circular ironies in this use…).
So, you might feel my happiness when I ran across some of these online resources. There are some animated maps which convey far more in 30 seconds than a five minute disquisition on what happened to create the stalemate in WWI, to see why the Mongols went where they did, or to ‘see’ how many roads and rail lines are often related to river systems that they supplanted (in many ways).
Mapping History
The map as history
http://www.the-map-as-history.com
This is a site which contains some more sophisticated perspectives on what maps represent. There are a number of websites and blogs out there which purport to deal with maps in an artistic/whimsical manner, I think that the Strange Maps site (part of the Big Think website) by Frank Jacobs may be a good place to start, and the British Library site of Mapping History may take you further yet.
As a means of conflating both of these ideas (maps as art, maps as animation) the Atlas of World History is another site which provides the big picture perspective how various empires and civilizations grew, expanded, and died…over time. This is a conflation of a map with a time line…which happens to be animated.
Finally, I come to yet another worthy contributor to a classroom’s supply of map related information. Thomas Lessman has a web page which contains content he felt impelled to create:
I quickly became frustrated while researching history because it’s hard to find great maps. The best maps are in books that cost more than I make in a week! There are some good ones online but they only show small regions or certain periods. As a "big picture" kind of guy, I wanted to know what the rest of the world looked like. So I realized if I want free "World History Maps" I’d have to make them myself…
I applaud people like Mr. Lessman, people who see shortcomings and fix or help to make life easier for the rest of us.
Talessman’s Atlas
http://www.worldhistorymaps.info/Maps.html
