When the world's at stake,
go beyond the headlines.

Welcome to Mid-Afternoon Map, our exclusive members-only newsletter that provides a cartographic perspective on current events, geopolitics, and history from the Caucasus to the Carolinas. Subscribers can look forward to interesting takes on good maps and bad maps, beautiful maps and ugly ones — and bizarre maps whenever possible.***Over the years, I’ve seen way too many ads for websites purporting to show the best examples of data visualization. Well, the following, I’d suggest, is one of the weirdest.Emma Willard, “The Temple of Time,” 1846, A.S. Barnes & Co., New YorkThe competition is fierce. There’s Byrhtferth’s diagram from the 12th century and this map from 2014 showing each Major League Baseball team’s playoff odds in terms of their travel time from ancient Rome. But even in such august company, The Temple of Time stands out. It was made by Emma Willard, a pioneering 19th-century educator with the admirable conviction that students would remember history better if it was given some kind of visual coherence. With this in mind, she created a series of what she called “chronographs” or “maps of time.” Some were devoted to U.S. history, others showed “the progress of the Roman Empire as illustrated by the course of the Amazon River.” But the Temple of Time was her masterpiece. It covered everything from the Creation to Andrew Jackson, helpfully arranged by century (on the walls), country (on the floor), and category of historical figure (on the ceiling).After peering into the temple’s receding, pastel depths for a few vertiginous minutes, one comes away impressed by the reverence our ancestors had for history. And perhaps relieved we don’t share it today. The image suggests that if you stare hard enough you can discern the true and eternal lessons of history. But also that in doing so you might go insane.As such, it’s a nice accompaniment to