10/8 Reading Commentary
One thing I found interesting is that by adopting a timeline, our focus is much more narrowed, and we aren’t directly comparing what is happening in different places at the same time. This is particularly interested becuase a lot of our focus on history is not just what events occured, but what led to them happening, and it’s often necessaryy to contrast one event with what is happening elsewhere that may have influenced an event. Yet, the adoption of timelines as a standard removes a dimension that would make these comparisons more apparent in certain situations. This reading seemed to echo a bit of what we talked about with big data, especially when comparing timeline with Priestly’s Chart of Biography. In choosing to use timeline, we now are focusing on overarching themes and lose some of of specificity and insight that looking at short time periods can provide.