A reader requests a classic map by Minard, popularized by Tufte, depicting the overleaping ambition of a grand campaign on a continental scale, showing how the thick river of Napoleon’s soldiers set out to conquer Russia, their numbers thinning as they finally reached their prize at Moscow, and then the diminished and rapidly shrunken rivulet of survivors making their pitiful way home, gathering one bunch of auxiliary troops who had been left behind to protect their way, only to perish in a particularly badly handled Berezina river crossing. Not only is the army size shown sequentially in time and space, but the crucial impact of the falling temperatures during the retreat are coldly laid out to make their mute case.
Tufte says: “it may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn”. It certainly sets a benchmark for contemporary statisticians to strive to attain. Are there any current figures which match this one for economy and dramatic impact?
It is great! Here's a better quality image of the map.
ReplyDeletePerhaps maps like this one:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=205
"Obviously Napoleon never played Risk as a child."
ReplyDeleteDear Dr James Thompson,
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that you, your colleagues, or your readers are involved in scientific research that may run contrary to current liberal/left-wing taboos.
Such research would be hard to find funding for.
A new website called wesearchr https://www.wesearchr.com allows people to ask questions of the public and have the public put up money acting as a bounty for people who can answer those questions. It essentially crowd funds the truth. Maybe it would be worthwhile to look into to raise funds for taboo research.
Thank you, Dr T. The heartless Corsican managed to slaughter a considerable fraction of Western Europe's young men. And, since the French Army always stole its food, presumably a fair number of Eastern Europe's peasantry.
ReplyDeleteHere's a version as an overlay to the Google map of the region. I hadn't realized that the start of the graph is only in Lithuania.
ReplyDeleteThe temperature in the original is on the Reaumur scale, which has its zero in the same place as Celsius, but with a degree equal to 1.25 deg. C or 2.25 deg. F.
The Mongols made it look easy.
ReplyDeleteYes, and they had the good sense to start in April, not leaving it to June, like the last attempt.
DeleteThe real attacks actually took place in winter. Ice-covered rivers were highways for the Mongol ponies.
ReplyDeleteI was scraping the barrel. I will abandon the dictum, which I think I got from Montgomery.
Delete