why did they start at 1814? would have been much more interesting incorporating earlier history: dutch colonialism, american independence, fluctuations in north american borders between french/spanish/anglos.
I kind of get his reasoning for choosing the four he chose, but this is simply just not as interesting without including America, both its splitting off from Britain, and then it's own growing empire.
@Hakuin: This is based on maritime power, which the US wasn't until about the 1940s. Furthermore, since he is using the term "empire", we would be dragged down the "is America an empire" debate.
@Curz, I recommend watching it in HD to get smoother animation.
As for the dynamics, he is experimenting with a tool that is not meant to display the data he fed into it. It is a fun experiment, not sure if it is useful, but still fun. I hope he can figure out a way to adjust the fluid dynamics (particularly collisions) with other types of data other than decolonialization.
Hakuin: America never had much of a growing empire. Sure we picked up PR, Guam and the Philippines but didn't keep Philippines and otherwise just have a few random islands in teh Pacific, mostly from WW2 where nobody lives.
This was an awesome visualization, great link and I'd have to agree, the start date was far too late.
YH, the HD doesn't do much for me. Just look at the first "pop" -- Paraguay and Venezuala fly across the screen and are hard to follow. That's the prime element that needs fixing.
"For a second, I thought this was going to be a photo of Obama bowing in Japan." Haha!
A clever bit of animation. I didn't see Cyprus in 1960 and I think you could have arguably included Iran's rejection of Lord Curzon's Anglo-Persian deal in 1921.
I tend to agree that the choice of the four Western European countries is a bit eccentric.
No Russia? No Turkey?
OK, so we only use martime empires, and they have to be based in Europe (to rule out the US and Japan). But I think the Dutch had some maritime colonies too, including a big one now called "Indonesia". Even the German and Italian maritime empires in the late 19th century were comparable to whatever the Spanish and Dutch had left, ignoring Germay's relationship with Turkey. Probably the "Congo Free State" doesn't count, being one man's personal fiefdom for much of its interesting.
The point is that there is just no coherent rationale for choosing those four. If you want just four blobs, I would have gone with Britain, Spain, Russia, and France and I'm not sure about picking France over Turkey.
Well, the choice of these four makes for good visuals of the decolonization process. Turkey would also look interesting but it was never at the same size level as these four. There won't be much coming off the USA bubble. Russia would work, though.
why not use the British North America act as the date of independence - this document is essentially the Canadian constitution? this is widely considered to be the date of independence here. Canada and the UK both commemorated the Canadian centennial in 1967.
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Comments to this entry
a
November 16, 2009
7:31 am
why did they start at 1814? would have been much more interesting incorporating earlier history: dutch colonialism, american independence, fluctuations in north american borders between french/spanish/anglos.
also, why didnt canada split off in 1867?
kende
November 16, 2009
7:38 am
Younghusband
November 16, 2009
7:40 am
Canada splits off during 1931 as per the Statute of Westminster.
Manas Blackman
November 16, 2009
11:15 am
Really like this visual tool – much better than a fat book
Curzon
November 16, 2009
11:52 am
Hakuin
November 16, 2009
12:06 pm
Younghusband
November 16, 2009
12:58 pm
@Curz, I recommend watching it in HD to get smoother animation.
As for the dynamics, he is experimenting with a tool that is not meant to display the data he fed into it. It is a fun experiment, not sure if it is useful, but still fun. I hope he can figure out a way to adjust the fluid dynamics (particularly collisions) with other types of data other than decolonialization.
Chirol
November 16, 2009
1:00 pm
This was an awesome visualization, great link and I'd have to agree, the start date was far too late.
Curzon
November 16, 2009
9:51 pm
Munro Ferguson
November 16, 2009
10:29 pm
A clever bit of animation. I didn't see Cyprus in 1960 and I think you could have arguably included Iran's rejection of Lord Curzon's Anglo-Persian deal in 1921.
kurt9
November 17, 2009
12:18 am
Master Cook
November 17, 2009
5:18 pm
No Russia? No Turkey?
OK, so we only use martime empires, and they have to be based in Europe (to rule out the US and Japan). But I think the Dutch had some maritime colonies too, including a big one now called "Indonesia". Even the German and Italian maritime empires in the late 19th century were comparable to whatever the Spanish and Dutch had left, ignoring Germay's relationship with Turkey. Probably the "Congo Free State" doesn't count, being one man's personal fiefdom for much of its interesting.
The point is that there is just no coherent rationale for choosing those four. If you want just four blobs, I would have gone with Britain, Spain, Russia, and France and I'm not sure about picking France over Turkey.
Kelvin
November 20, 2009
6:26 am
a
November 22, 2009
1:10 pm