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.