I expected to spend a couple of minutes browsing this, yet 25 minutes later I'm not even halfway through.
The best (so far) are the ones above the strings "on June 2nd, 1940" and "effort by Russian War Relief". I can't imagine the amount of research and sheer work (especially pre-internet) to create these.
I was a kid who played SimCity 2000, RISK, and had tons of books about geography. Having physical pieces of paper that I'd spend minutes or hours analyzing was so satisfying. Scrolling around Google Earth or doing GIS-based analysis is also satisfying, but I really got a kick out of looking at this post (putting aside the seriousness of WW2).
I recently finished a large World War II project that covered the full timeline of the war, and Google Maps was a valuable tool to follow what was happening in any given battle. The problem is Google Maps has more detail than you need, so trying to follow something like Operation Market Garden is much more difficult than just looking at this beautiful battle map: https://www.alamy.com/a-bridge-too-far-image68088140.html. "The West Point Atlas of War" is another great resource.
Maps cover the spatial side of war, but in addition it's difficult to follow the timeline. My project stitched popular World War II movies together into a chronological series, making it easier to see what was happening across the world at any given time. You can view the episodes and the full blog post here: https://open.substack.com/pub/ww2supercut/p/combining-143-wo.... And in addition "The Second World War" by Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert, is a chronological, 750 page book that I couldn't put down.
I have a 1944 World Almanac. It's incredibly detailed on World War Two - by my count, page 31 and 35-113 are mostly or totally devoted to it, in addition to the various bits on armies scattered throughout. Sometimes I look at it just to see what happened on that particular day (for instance: today, German forces landed in Leros, in the Aegean Sea, which was at the time held by the British, among many other events - and that just in 1943!) There are also some incredibly detailed war maps which I sometimes look at. At some point I should probably get around to uploading them, as they are absolutely amazing and I'd like to share it, but it's always near the bottom of my to-do list.
Something I've come to really appreciate about WWII, is how much effort was put into either creating or implementing concepts about organization and efficiency into action. WWII was likely the largest organizational endeavor in human history.
There's an almost paradoxical immensity to it, where humans, using paper, typewriters, physical mail, and early electric (not electronic) communication systems had to organize millions of humans into large coordinated efforts over about half the surface of a planet.
They did it without the aid of computers and the unlimited up-to-date firehoses of data that we have today. The paradox is that it's not entirely clear that our modern civilization, using these advantages, would be able to do what they did. Modern technologies seem to create an effect of overanalysis, where the WW2 generation often worked in deeply ambiguous grey areas.
Our tendency today is to want to produce as much up to date information as possible, even if its not necessary to the overall goal. We want to use a computer to scrub deeply through immense data to produce marginal gains. A Strategic General in WW2 might want to move 100,000 men and arms to a different location and issue the order where it would be relayed by post, telephone, or telegraph. To find out if that order was fulfilled might take weeks or months to even find out. Today we would want to track each soldier's boots to watch them march across a digital map in real-time.
Yet it worked. With major operations occurring down to the minute that involved multinational organizations moving millions of tons of human lives, arms, supply, and equipment, all also built to fulfill that order, on time and at high quality.
I don't think we can really comprehend how big an operation that was. A movie like "Saving Private Ryan" was incredibly good (especially the scene on the beach front) but didn't come anywhere close to show anything resembling that picture.
This is awesome. Cool to see the history told this way.
I would also encourage folks to seek out photos/footage of the concentration camps in Europe as well as the aftermath of the atomic bombings in Japan. When you see the unsanitized horror it really gives you pause that people did this to each other. And why war is worth trying to prevent.
For WW2 visualizations, The Fallen of World War II (http://www.fallen.io/ww2/) is a masterpiece—well-researched, clearly visualized, and paired with excellent narration. It balances nuance with the big picture, and even though it addresses tens of millions of deaths, it reminds us that these are people, not mere statistics.
Interesting article! The details on the maps are always interesting. The first map of 1939 shows the British blockade line of the North Sea that was so important during the First World War but would play a much lesser role in the Second, it probably would not even be present on most maps made after the war.
My son and I are fans of Stephen E. Ambrose's books "D-Day" and "Citizen Soldiers" (as audiobooks), but would really love a video companion to the books that charts the territories being discussed. It would be like a subtitles file, but with map images and timing.
I would love to endow Mr. Goldwag to undertake such an endeavor. His site demonstrates his love of maps as tools to help understand history. Fantastic!
The winds of war and war and remembrance books (or audio books) are a pretty good way to get a feel for ww2. They're historically accurate fiction and offer a lot of long-form detail and context (at least from the US/allies side of things)
The more I philosophize on the subject. The reason Western boomers had it so very good is due to them being born mere moments after a cataclysmic, violent human struggle that killed nearly 80 million people ended.
The modern maps, while technically more "accurate" than hand-drawn diagrams, are almost shockingly light on information in comparison, and the accompanying text is a linear recounting of various advances and retreats with only passing explanation of the strategic importance of either.
I think there are two effects at play here: one is the decrease in expectation of the readership to have much comprehension or critical thinking facility, which is counterintuitive given supposed strides in education over the last eighty years. The second is the gutting of the news media as an industry where career professionals could get and keep lifetime experience in understanding important events and their place in history. While no doubt reporters today are doing their best, the news media is increasingly reliant on contract work and fresh grist for the mill, and it seems obvious that the writers at the NYT have just not been given the resources or motivation to become as familiar with the contours of the conflict as the writers of the past.
Visualizing World War II
(nathangoldwag.wordpress.com)431 points by gaws 11 November 2024 | 89 comments
Comments
The best (so far) are the ones above the strings "on June 2nd, 1940" and "effort by Russian War Relief". I can't imagine the amount of research and sheer work (especially pre-internet) to create these.
I was a kid who played SimCity 2000, RISK, and had tons of books about geography. Having physical pieces of paper that I'd spend minutes or hours analyzing was so satisfying. Scrolling around Google Earth or doing GIS-based analysis is also satisfying, but I really got a kick out of looking at this post (putting aside the seriousness of WW2).
Maps cover the spatial side of war, but in addition it's difficult to follow the timeline. My project stitched popular World War II movies together into a chronological series, making it easier to see what was happening across the world at any given time. You can view the episodes and the full blog post here: https://open.substack.com/pub/ww2supercut/p/combining-143-wo.... And in addition "The Second World War" by Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert, is a chronological, 750 page book that I couldn't put down.
There's an almost paradoxical immensity to it, where humans, using paper, typewriters, physical mail, and early electric (not electronic) communication systems had to organize millions of humans into large coordinated efforts over about half the surface of a planet.
They did it without the aid of computers and the unlimited up-to-date firehoses of data that we have today. The paradox is that it's not entirely clear that our modern civilization, using these advantages, would be able to do what they did. Modern technologies seem to create an effect of overanalysis, where the WW2 generation often worked in deeply ambiguous grey areas.
Our tendency today is to want to produce as much up to date information as possible, even if its not necessary to the overall goal. We want to use a computer to scrub deeply through immense data to produce marginal gains. A Strategic General in WW2 might want to move 100,000 men and arms to a different location and issue the order where it would be relayed by post, telephone, or telegraph. To find out if that order was fulfilled might take weeks or months to even find out. Today we would want to track each soldier's boots to watch them march across a digital map in real-time.
Yet it worked. With major operations occurring down to the minute that involved multinational organizations moving millions of tons of human lives, arms, supply, and equipment, all also built to fulfill that order, on time and at high quality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord#/media/File...
I don't think we can really comprehend how big an operation that was. A movie like "Saving Private Ryan" was incredibly good (especially the scene on the beach front) but didn't come anywhere close to show anything resembling that picture.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_World_War_II
and there is this hard cover ''Atlas of World War II'':
https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-World-War-II-Cartography/dp/142...
I would also encourage folks to seek out photos/footage of the concentration camps in Europe as well as the aftermath of the atomic bombings in Japan. When you see the unsanitized horror it really gives you pause that people did this to each other. And why war is worth trying to prevent.
I would love to endow Mr. Goldwag to undertake such an endeavor. His site demonstrates his love of maps as tools to help understand history. Fantastic!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost
The modern maps, while technically more "accurate" than hand-drawn diagrams, are almost shockingly light on information in comparison, and the accompanying text is a linear recounting of various advances and retreats with only passing explanation of the strategic importance of either.
I think there are two effects at play here: one is the decrease in expectation of the readership to have much comprehension or critical thinking facility, which is counterintuitive given supposed strides in education over the last eighty years. The second is the gutting of the news media as an industry where career professionals could get and keep lifetime experience in understanding important events and their place in history. While no doubt reporters today are doing their best, the news media is increasingly reliant on contract work and fresh grist for the mill, and it seems obvious that the writers at the NYT have just not been given the resources or motivation to become as familiar with the contours of the conflict as the writers of the past.