The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
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Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#2Well done visualizations of the number of military & civilian deaths occurred during second world war. The video version was a bit long, yet rich in details. The interactive vis. in the middle of the video was useful.
Though most of the video deals with the number of deaths, towards the last 10% of the video, the focus is on the PEACE we are enjoying today. The comparison between how bad the world was in the past to how good it is now, is staggering.
One nice twist was, towards the end of the video (17:30 mins), the time line zooms in based on your computer's local time.
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#3Well done visualizations of the number of military & civilian deaths occurred during second world war. The video version was a bit long, yet rich in details. The interactive vis. in the middle of the video was useful. Though most of the video deals with the number of deaths, towards the last 10% of the video, the focus is on the PEACE we are enjoying today. The comparison between how bad the world was in the past to…
> Though most of the video deals with the number of deaths, towards the last 10% of the video, the focus is on the PEACE we are enjoying today. The comparison between how bad the world was in the past to how good it is now, is staggering.
Indeed. What worries me is how deeply dependent that peace has been on policymakers having living memories of how terrible World War 2 actually was, and of how Hiroshima and Nagasaki pointed to the possibility that World War 3 could be even worse. Several times during that long peace the U.S. and the Soviet Union came to the brink of war, only to be pulled back by leaders on both sides who remembered the horrors the war unleashed and didn't want to see them unleashed again.
President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, for instance, had both seen the war first-hand -- Kennedy in a PT boat in the Pacific, Khrushchev as a political commissar in the struggle against the Germans on the Eastern Front. When the Cuban Missile Crisis was at its height, Khrushchev explicitly called on Kennedy to let those experiences guide him to step back (http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/fall/cuba...):
Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot. And what that would mean is not for me to explain to you.
So the question is -- what happens when everyone who carries those memories is long dead? When the leaders only know what war, real war, is from dusty history books and rah-rah action movies? Will they be as willing to swallow their pride in order to pull back from the brink as those who already lived through it once were?
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#4This is just beautifully done. It blends art, documentary, data visualization, and history in a way I've never seen before. It must have taken quite a lot of work.
I'd love more info on the technologies used to produce it.
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#5Once again illustrates that it basically was the Russian winter that stopped the nazis.
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#6Once again illustrates that it basically was the Russian winter that stopped the nazis.
You think the 20 million Soviet war dead had anything to do with it?
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#7Once again illustrates that it basically was the Russian winter that stopped the nazis.
Do the winters last for 1.5 years around St Petersburg?
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#8Once again illustrates that it basically was the Russian winter that stopped the nazis.
You think the 20 million Soviet war dead had anything to do with it?
Here's some scientific evidence of the Russian winters 1940 - 1942 being particularily harsh:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1256/wea.248.04/pdf
Of course, it did not help that Hitler thought he could advance much faster and did not even prepare for winter. Those two winters weakened the Germans significantly.
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#9Well done visualizations of the number of military & civilian deaths occurred during second world war. The video version was a bit long, yet rich in details. The interactive vis. in the middle of the video was useful. Though most of the video deals with the number of deaths, towards the last 10% of the video, the focus is on the PEACE we are enjoying today. The comparison between how bad the world was in the past to…
> Though most of the video deals with the number of deaths, towards the last 10% of the video, the focus is on the PEACE we are enjoying today. The comparison between how bad the world was in the past to how good it is now, is staggering. Indeed. What worries me is how deeply dependent that peace has been on policymakers having living memories of how terrible World War 2 actually was, and of how Hiroshima and Nagasak…
Even WWII was started on the assumption that it would be a quick and relatively painless war. I suspect that modern missile technology makes this assumption flatly invalid.
Re: The Fallen of World War II – An Interactive, Data-Driven Documentary
#10Who else noticed the flag of China? It should be called ROC or Taiwan if you use that flag.