Guides to reading the atlas
6 guides about the conventions this atlas runs on - the dates, the era boundaries, the city pages, the collections and the profiles themselves. They exist because the 125 profiles can tell you who Hannibal was but cannot tell you why his birth year is written c. 247 BCE, or why both Ancient Greece and The Roman World claim the third century BCE.
Every number in these guides is counted from the atlas itself: 125 figures, 8 eras, 30 cities, 10 collections. Where a guide names a figure, an era or a city, it links to that page so you can check the claim against the entry it came from.
The guides
Reading the dates in this atlas
What ~470 BCE, c. 247 BCE, (OS) and (NS) mean on a History Atlas profile, why the timeline sorts by a single year, and where that number is a guess.
Where the eight eras overlap, and why
The atlas divides Western history into eight eras whose date ranges overlap by up to six centuries. Here is every overlap, and the 29 lives that spill past one.
City or era: two ways into the same 125 lives
The atlas indexes 125 figures by 8 eras and by 30 cities. What each index can answer, what a city page actually claims, and the four figures no city reaches.
What a figure profile contains - and what it does not
Every field on a History Atlas profile, what the 211 quote attributions really claim, why there is no per-figure bibliography, and how to study from one anyway.
Ten collections, 94 figures, and the 31 with no door
The atlas has 10 collections covering 94 of its 125 figures. What each one is actually arguing, and why Edison, Columbus and Bismarck are in none of them.
A reading order for 125 lives
An eight-stage path through the atlas, built on its own 453 related-figure links: where to start each era, which figure to read next, where the chain breaks.
Or go straight to the atlas
- The atlas home page - figure of the day, browse, search, the timeline and the quiz.
- The 8 era hubs: Ancient Greece, The Roman World, Medieval Europe, The Renaissance, Scientific Revolution & Enlightenment, Age of Revolution, Industrial & Victorian Age, The Modern Era.
- 10 curated collections, including The Greek Philosophers and Women Who Shaped the West.