Just saw this on the BBC’s YouTube channel. Sobering, exciting, fascinating… and sobering. The economic progress of 200 countries over the course of 200 years — demonstrated and discussed in a four-minute video:
As always with simple presentations of complex issues, especially statistics, there’s such a thing as reading too much into this. Politicians and ideologues of all stripes can likely find support for their points of view here. For the rest of us, maybe it’s just the ideal opportunity to contemplate the age we live in.
(Coincidentally — and I swear this really happened — last night a monster cold-front rainstorm passed through. As I was getting ready for bed, I thought, Two hundred years ago, people would have thought it a miracle that I’m getting into a dry bed.)
I’ve been working on a regular post, off and on, for a couple days now. This was just too interesting not to pass on to you!
Update: For a really absorbing view of these statistics, go here. You can track individual countries’ paths of progress (or otherwise), change the statistics used, and so on.
fg says
A great clip.
The Beeb are famous for these. Especially the ones they do for election night!
I notice China has a massive wobble in 1959 and interesting the extent the Spanish flu on in the early 20th C. effects the chart.
whaddayamean says
This is great. Thanks.
whaddayamean says
I sent this to a bunch of people, including my friend who’s a high school teacher. She’s going to be showing it in her history class. She says thanks, too.
John says
I’m so glad somebody else liked this! For me, it falls into the “Am I crazy, or is this actually fairly mind-blowing?” category.
The more I played around with that interactive version, the more I could feel the hours slipping away from me. I have no idea if I left the experience any smarter or better informed; it felt like (I imagine) spending a couple hours in one of those sensory-deprivation tanks must feel. So I guess I came out of it feeling refreshed and a little disconnected from real life.
fg: I’ve never seen any of those election videos, but I bet they’re fascinating (especially if accompanied by a good explainer’s voiceover).
And yes, that Spanish flu/World War I movement was fascinating! On the interactive map, any number of combinations of statistics produced strange-up and-down or side-to-side retrograde effects. Technically, it’s not really true that if you can get two statistics to correlate, you’ve demonstrated a real relationship — cause and effect, say — between them. But it’s very hard to ignore the correlations, especially when you see them holding true across many data points!
I’m about to show my ignorance, but did anything in particular happen in China in 1959??? (The Cultural Revolution was later, wasn’t it?)
whaddayamean: Hope it helped your friend (and didn’t freak out too many students (one or two is okay, though :)))!
fg says
Just to let you know this has been sticking in my mind and I found myself talking about the Spanish flu with a group of people last week. (Because of course it shows up on other charts, like one showing art market sales.)
Anyway I am going to shamelessly pinch it and put it on facebook as it is as good as you thought.
John says
fg: I must say, I don’t know a hell of a lot of people who’d find themselves talking about the Spanish flu with even ONE person, let alone a group of them.
…Although, now that I think about it, uh, well, WE’RE talking about the Spanish flu, aren’t we?
The world is full of surprises.