Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline Paperback – February 1, 2012

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.

A beautiful book. Yes, the illustrations are small and often highly reduced, but just use a magnifying glass.

This is a beautiful book with an incredible wealth of fascinating timelines illustrated. Unfortunately, the book is fatally compromised by the publisher's business requirement to print the book in an affordable trim size. I am 50 years old and near sighted and I simply cannot read most of the type on the illustrations. I see this as a symptom of a fundamental problem of modern publishing in which publishers have gradually accepted more and more compromises in readability without fully accounting for the degree to which the value of the book is diminished. Remember form follows function. For poster sized illustrations with body size type to be readable in a print and bound book, it must be atlas sized, if this makes the per copy price very, very high. This actually fits with trends in the publishing industry ... hardcover books increasingly must be distinguished from ebooks by their value as bespoke artifacts. Publishers of illustrated books should embrace this trend.

I have to agree with the reviewer J. Coates. This book should be a five star just for the originality of the subject matter, and the author's excellent coverage. But the publisher has defeated the author's intention, which is to display the rich history of timelines.I will give you just one example from many. On page 143, the book shows two images from Auguste Comte's Positivist calendar from 1849. Each of these images is about 80mm by 40mm: about one-tenth the size of the original, as far as I can tell. Unless you are using the Large Hadron Collider to get a better view, the images provide only the vaguest of approximations.There is no point in buying this book if you are over the age of 40: your eyes simply will not be able to cope without a magnifying glass and a Maglite for illumination. The font size of the body text is somewhere between eensy-weensy and really eensy-weensy, and the font size used for captions makes a 6-point font look like banner headlines.I don't know if the publisher shafted the author, or if the author colluded in this massacre of his own vision. One day a better publisher will reprint the work in a much larger format, and then we shall have a truly great work to read.

Well I felt quite guilty ordering this book, it seemed so.... frivolous or something during this recession. But I had been given an Amazon gift card and so decided to splurge.No regrets, and in fact the book really blew me away. It's one of those books that 20 years from now when you're pairing down your library or moving or whatever, you will come upon this book and shout out "OHMYGODILOVETHISBOOK!!!!" It's one of those books.I ordered two by mistake, in all my initial waffling back and forth. So I sent the second copy to a high-end graphic designer I work with as a holiday gift, and she flipped out over it too.In short, this is one of the special ones. Don't delay, buy it today.

If you care about Books - the real, physical objects you can hold in your hands, add to your library and leave to your kids, this is one to splurge on (it's expensive). The subject, clearly explained in the title, is fascinating, whether or not you bring a previous interest to it. All you need is general intellectual curiosity to be drawn in and amazed at the text and the extremely high quality color exhibits. This is NOT to say this is a "hard" book: it's the curiosity that counts, not the intellect. So if you ever overspend on a book, buy this one: you will definitely get what you pay for, and more.

let down by the miniscule illustrations

I am happy to have bought this book.I would like to see more reflection and information related to digital timelines and its developments due the developments of laptops and smartphones.

Nice book for research, write article. An fundamental base for stydent in the area graphic design, information design and communication design.

sono curioso di sapere se la versione rigida (hardcorver) ha le pagine più grandi e le immagini più nitide (miglior definizione). comunque in mancanza di confronto questa versione 'soft' (paper back) e comunque bellissima.

時間というものを、昔のひとたちはどのように記述（視覚化）していたのか。その変化や方法を多くの図版で見ていくことができます。ダイアグラムの参考資料として購入しました。メインは昔の視覚化の図版です。現代のもありますが、パスで描かれた図表ではなく、アナログな作品が紹介されています。ノーテーション／ダイアグラム／インフォグラフィック／タイムライン／デザイン／記譜