Lots of cool pictures, commentary was interesting also. ( )

I think it has been in my primary school that I came into contact with chronographs: graphic representations of history, usually chronologically, in the form of a timeline. I see them still hanging in the classroom, at a fairly high altitude, starting with the 'prehistory' and ending in the culmination of our civilization: the kingdom of Belgium (yes, I still date from the times that national history was the pinnacle of the history lesson).

This book outlines how that chronographic representation of time originated and evolved, from the tables of Eusebius in the 4th century, to the timelines that you find in numerous graphic applications on your computer or in museums. In their introduction, the authors put a strong emphasis on the conceptual history visions that underlie those graphic representations, and that was exactly what pulled me to reading this book: “traditional chronographic forms performed both historical work and heavy conceptual lifting. They assembled, selected, and organized various bits of historical information in the form of dated lists. And the chronologies of a given period may tell us as much about its visions or past and futures as do its historical narratives.” In other words: the representations should reflect an own representation of time/history at the conceptual level.

Unfortunately, the authors have completely lost sight of this intention en route. This whole book is a somewhat chronological sketch of the various forms of chronographs with emphasis on the technical and practical aspects: in tables, diagrams, tree-structure representations, with pictograms or concrete visual representations, colored or not, etc. Pretty interesting, certainly, but there is hardly anything to be found in this book about the conceptual background and implications of these various forms. Regrettable. Moreover, many illustrations are so small that you can hardly distinguish anything relevant. A missed opportunity. ( )

I was skeptical that the authors could find enough information in timelines to fill 200+ pages, but I was pleasantly surprised at how they tied in graphical representations of time with the philosophy and current events of the time period, from Biblical chronology to the Cold War. ( )

I didn't finish this. It's not bad, but about half way through I decided I didn't really care.

The illustrations are lovely. The text seems to keep repeating more or less the same thing, just with different names. It's also too big and heavy for comfortable reading.

I was reading the German edition. Some of my difficulties could have been due to the translation. ( )

A great and important book, giving the history of timelines, graphical representations of history. This is epitomized by their inspired choice of title: Cartographies of Time, i.e. presenting timelines as a temporal-map, an adjunct to the more familiar spatial-map. They cover nearly everything, beginning with simple tables, to graphical tables, to proper timelines, in numerous forms, to artistic and computer representations of time. It is a great effort. The authors cite everything admirably, describe ideas and images perfectly, and seem to cover almost every facet of timeline in a lucid and thorough manner. The section on the timelines of the nineteenth century, the heyday, the golden age, of antiquarianism (so often a slur, unfortunately, for historians today), is brilliant and intriguing.

The only problems I can say are these. One is physical. This book should be twice its (10.7 x 8.7 x 1.1 inches) size. Some images are large enough and clear enough to show minute detail; many, far too many, are too small and blurry. You can get the gist of these images, but it is disappointing to find so many grand timelines that are too small to read. You will need a powerful magnifying glass to fully enjoy this book. The second problem is that the historical atlas is virtually ignored. True, maps are intertwined and integral to many of the timelines, but the maps that show chronological time are absent. True, this subject is covered elsewhere (in the unfortunately horribly boring Maps and History by Jeremy Black), but it should be addressed - these are indeed other ways of representing time, and the very epitome of Cartographies of Time.

All in all though, this book is a must for all historians, for all map lovers, and for all theological scholars interested in the representation of church history, biblical chronology, and biblical prophecy. And it is a fine, medium-paced read. ( )