Imperiia: a spatial history of the Russian EmpireMain MenuAboutProjectsDashboardsData CatalogMapStoriesGalleriesGamesWho said history was boring?Teach Our ContentCiting the ProjectKelly O'Neilldc20b45f1d74122ba0d654d19961d826c5a557f5The Imperiia Project // Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
detail from Adams' Illustrated Panorama of History, 1878
What if the map isn't there to help tell a story. What if the map is the story?
Maps do not tell stories in the same way books do. The stories maps tell seem - to the untrained eye - to lack beginnings and endings. Characters. Plot lines. Some people even say that maps are just objective representations of places - that they do not tell stories at all.
But the truth is that within the neatline of any map there is intrigue and drama and nuance and, sometimes, even a grandiose, sweeping view of the world. Every map tells a story. You just have to know where to look.
Each of these projects sketches the story (or stories) told by a single map (or set of maps). Sometimes it is a matter of putting things together, and sometimes it is a matter of pulling them apart. You will see.
