I found this interesting histograph over on /r/civ that purports to show the rise and fall of various civilizations throughout history, demonstrating their relative power in world affairs.
I realize that this covers basically the entirety of human history, but I was just wondering if anyone here could comment a bit on its accuracy. At the very least, I'm sure there are many in this community who would find it interesting. I wonder especially about the relative size of certain empires, and if this depiction has a large euro-centric bias.
A few obvious issues:
it never defines "relative power," the variable that it is mapping
it pre-supposes that some of these groups are homogenous entities of power that can express power (again, without ever defining power, either)
entire ethnic/national/linguistic groups appear out of nowhere without any apparent origins
it does definitely look like it has a Euro-centric bias (the Eastern nations rarely have any "power" at all in this model, except in the few times they end up giving the West a headache, like the Mongols)
historians are these days generally against this kind of sweeping generalization because so much is always lost, and they confuse more than they enlighten (do we really think the Holy Roman Empire had 2X the relative power as the Turks in 1100? What on Earth would we mean by saying that?)
I think a fun exercise would be to show this to historians of different time periods and ask them what variable they think is being mapped. (E.g., what does "relative power" mean here?) My suggestion: "interest in these cultures expressed in American textbooks around the early-to-mid-20th century."
