{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":7.45,"text":"I am a sucker for museum gift shops. On a recent visit to the Atlanta History Center my attention was grabbed by a simple cloth tote bag featuring the bold statement “History is messy — and it can bring us together”. The easy sale that followed probably helps explain why I’m also drawn to Paul Kahn’s new book."}],[{"start":27.5,"text":"Spanning 800 years of how humans have used graphics to understand and explain the world around them, from biblical tales to trade routes, from ancient family trees to race and ethnicity, Mapping Knowledge Across Time is a messy-but-beautiful book that wouldn’t look out of place on a coffee table. But its particular appeal lies in its source content, which strays beyond the usual fare of data visualisation history — those expecting to encounter the works of Florence Nightingale, William Playfair or Edward Tufte will come away disappointed."}],[{"start":58.25,"text":"Kahn is a lecturer at Northeastern University where, among other things, he teaches the history of information design. The history he presents here is predicated on what he calls “an imaginary library” of seven very real books, kicking off in 1154 with the Tabula Rogeriana (The Book of Roger). We also encounter The Catalan Atlas (1375), the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), the Tushu Bian (1613), the Atlas Historique (1700s), the Physikalischer Atlas (1852) and the World Geo-Graphic Atlas from 1953. "}],[{"start":96.9,"text":"Kahn explains his selection by highlighting the books’ shared attributes, most notably that each owes its existence to “a cultural need to visualise the entire world”. Of course, choosing any seven books from the best part of a millennium involves a degree of arbitrary reductionism, but his selection works well. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":115.7,"text":"Given the centuries separating the books, there are plenty of overlaps in their visual identities. Timelines represented in Herbert Bayer’s mid-20th-century World Geo-Graphic Atlas echo the elegant curved lines used in family trees in the Nuremberg Chronicle, an illustrated encyclopedia that was published to commercial success nearly 500 years earlier. Indeed, rather than focus on one book at a time in chronological order, Kahn organises his chapters around such shared patterns. I’m a big fan of this approach, as those familiar with the visual vocabulary, the FT’s framework for data visualisation, will be aware."}],[{"start":154.55,"text":"Kahn explores a mixture of form and topic. The former includes a chapter on how all the books use circles in varying contexts, while the latter includes sections that analyse how transport, trade and classifications of humanity have evolved to reflect cultural and economic realities of the time."}],[{"start":172.95000000000002,"text":"A thought-provoking chapter on the representation of time showcases multiple solutions to the challenge of showing past, present and future on a static page, while dealing with both chronological and cultural curveballs. An illustration of Noah’s Ark from the Nuremberg Chronicle skilfully depicts carpenters preparing the ship, the completed vessel being loaded, and a dove returning with a branch as a single visual narrative. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":199.55,"text":"In the Physikalischer Atlas, a collection of maps and charts focusing on the physical world, time runs from left to right to convey the evolution of geological formations, but it avoids quantifying the passage of time to “not directly challenge Bishop Ussher’s calculation that the date of Creation was 4,004 years before the birth of Christ”. The graphic itself is an adaptation of an 1836 original by the paleontologist and geologist William Buckland, neatly demonstrating the Newtonian nature of information visualisation. Practitioners stand on the shoulders of giants who may have been active many years, decades or even centuries before."}],[{"start":240.35000000000002,"text":"Readers may want to pinch-to-zoom on many of the large and finely detailed images. Spoiler alert: you can’t, it’s a paper book. But it has clearly been user-tested, because many of the largest graphics also feature magnified separate panels for the reader to appreciate the sheer intricacy of the imagery. This is a book to linger over, bringing fresh delights on each visit."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":265.35,"text":"Kahn affords himself the luxury of featuring historical graphics from beyond the confines of his septet, which is a good thing. For example, it would be difficult to cover the history of early trade visualisations without showing the pioneering work of the French engineer Charles Joseph Minard. Kahn duly includes his 19th-century maps, citing them as an influence on the distinctly modernist World Geo-Graphic Atlas."}],[{"start":290.75,"text":"Of course, we study the past because often it is the best guide to what will happen in the future. To conclude, Kahn speculates about what an eighth, 21st-century, book for his “imaginary library” might look like. Although we’re more than a quarter of the way through it and I’m still reviewing a paper book, the implication is that formats will continuously evolve, as indeed they have through what has already been a golden age for digital data visualisation."}],[{"start":316.6,"text":"“Imagine an animated book, giving off the sound of flaps and friction as the pages turned. Pages that unfold to cover floors, walls, ceilings. Pages that rise up, spin, and send dissolving smoke and hissing images into the air.” This sounds uncannily like a mash-up between the skeuomorphic design of peak Adobe Flash (RIP) and the virtual reality of Apple Vision Pro."}],[{"start":342.1,"text":"Kahn notes that “Current Imperfection always looks like the future . . . In the not-so-distant past, wax cylinders, nitrocellulose film, and videotape cassettes were also The Future.” As was Adobe Flash. Unwieldy VR headsets will probably fit into this list just fine too. My theory is that all these formats fall away because they fail the coffee-table test. Thankfully, Kahn’s book doesn’t."}],[{"start":369.20000000000005,"text":"Mapping Knowledge Across Time: Seven Books that Visualized the World by Paul Kahn CRC Press £49.99, 336 pages"}],[{"start":381.45000000000005,"text":"Alan Smith is the FT’s head of visual and data journalism"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":385.50000000000006,"text":"Summer books 2026: the best titles of the year so far"}],[{"start":390.30000000000007,"text":"From economics, politics and technology to travel, art and fiction — our annual round-up brings you top titles picked by FT writers and critics. Read more"}],[{"start":400.70000000000005,"text":"Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café and follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X"}],[{"start":416.6500000000001,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784957276_7173.mp3"}