I suggest reading Arundhati Roy's "Field Notes on Democracy. Listening to Grasshoppers."

I guess we can look forward to Communism coming back. I'm really interested in seeing what democracy will develop into. Maybe we'll start going backwards? It's completely believable at this point in time.

These sorts of maps frustrate me so much. They are weirdly US centric. The myth Americans believe that they really are the first modern democracy is so strange. It just makes no sense. It is founded on those principles, but most countries in the world aren't founded they just happen and so insisting on a written constitution (which the UK still doesn't have, for example) skews results. Every time something does that I find it jarring.

This was fascinating and severely disappointing at the same time: I was disappointed by the extremely vague/weak notion of democracy. I would have liked the map to also show when WHICH groups were allowed to vote were: Those without x acres of land, women, ethnic minorities etc
THAT would have been interesting.

I have to express my dissatisfaction with this visualization, eye-catching though it is. It relies on a breathtakingly shallow conception of history and an ontology of civilizations and governments that is inextricably linked to the most cartoonish strains of American Exceptionalism.

--Magna Carta is a "democratic" document? It has nothing to do with democracy, much less "Modern Democracy." It was a power-sharing deal between a King and a bunch of Barons. Although it does proclaim certain freedoms for ordinary people, it says nothing about the people selecting their own rulers or writing their own laws.

--The Republic of Rome is depicted as a "democratic" power, while, for example, Britain of the Enlightenment is not. That's plain weird. If you want to tell a historian that the United Kingdom was a "feudal" state in 1789, make sure she is not drinking anything: you're liable to be caught in the spit-take. But for all the powers of the Prime Minister and all the diminution of the Crown, Britain must not be counted as a "democracy," because it must be contrasted with the American and French Revolutions. Contrariwise, however little democracy existed in Rome, we must draw a line from the Roman Senate to the American.

--You see the part where the USA expands across an entire continent, fighting imperialist wars and dispossessing native peoples? Thank God we didn't also become "Nationalists," like those Europeans. Instead...

--During the 19th century, Democracy is depicted as radiating outwards from the USA to illuminate the rest of the world. That's just charming. (I especially like the way we Americans made Canada democratic. You're welcome.)Did you know that the USA was responsible for moving Western Europe from "Nationalism" (whatever kind of government that is supposed to be) to "Democracy" just in time for some of them to join the "good" side (i.e., ours) in the World Wars? Did you know that Russia in 1914 was run by "Nationalists," but Britain was not?

Just some quick takes, and I'm sorry for the scattershot quality. I can't seem to move back or forward within the video, and I'm not inclined to keep watching the whole thing over and over again.

I agree with most of the comments, I also missed the spread of colonialism, ah good times.

The animation has several errors. It makes me wonder how many other errors there are that I didn't catch, simply because I'm not knowledgable enough about the historical era.

First, Athens was a Democracy, not a Republic.

Second, the "blue" shown for Rome is the extent of Rome at the height of its ... EMPIRE. As in, ruled by an emperor/dictator, not the people.

Third, Rome was never a Democracy. It was a Republic.

Ugh, I hate how flashy graphics lend credence to these mistakes.

It's nice that after WWII Spain is coloured grey instead of fascist yellow, just like other right wing dictatorships (both in Europe, like Greece, and Latin America) that had American backing. Also, Africa's post-colonial wars are forgotten, as well as anything that has had to do with the Middle East (say, the various wars around Israel and Palestina and the Shah of Persia and the subsequent revolution in Iran).

Even France's turbulent XIXth century is simplified to "democracy expands, yay!". Sheesh.

Wel, it's not only that it is horribly euro-centrist (how about all the countries never given a colour, like, uhm, India, Saudi-Arabia or most of Africa and Latin America for example?) the very idea that a particular organization og society starts at a very specific place and time and then 'spread out' is a highly problematic way of explaining historical development. It feeds right in to a narrative of history as an amazing conquest.

And then, the categories used are (deliberately?) vague - so Rome is a democracy (except when it was an empire, of course), USA was a 'the first nation to have democracy' so that's essentially the same or huh? And interesting how many modern countries are not considered democratic by this film, like Russia, which, however not perfect by any means, has a democratic state structure. And how is 'nationalism' as a political rule comparable to 'modern democracy'?

And don't get me started on how the film basically ignores European colonialism, a major economic and political force in history. How is it even possibly to tell world history without it?

You say that the film highlights how political systems are constructed and disapper due to change - but surely only the absolutely most uninformed will (consciously) disagree on that statement? Isn't there a more substantial point to be made here?

blech....I had to stop taking it seriously when I saw how long the map used the term "feudalism". for one thing, feudalism was only ever in practice the way it claims to have been in England, where it was put together intentionally. and second, it does. not. last. What's wrong with "monarchy?"

Unless, as I hope i'm wrong about, the whole point of the video was to portray "democracy" as an absolute right way to do things period end of story. If that's the case, calling it feudalism makes it sound more horrible than it would have been, and even more "primative"

That was just bizarre in terms of how much was omitted and which things were included.

The description made it sound rather interesting. I was very disappointed.

I want to point out that I didn't share the video because I liked it, but because it was an interesting example of TENDENTIOUS history.

In addition to the numerous inaccuracies and other problems already pointed out, notice that the word "capitalism" is nowhere to be found.

This video is obviously oversimplifying and showing only several of the most influential political systems, but I would be fascinated to see how the the weak South American and African countries, destabilized in the aftermath of colonization, were affected by these currents.

I agree with the comments above, but have one more problem. If we describe democracy as rule by the people, with the people choosing leaders and able to remove leaders from power, many Native American societies have been consistently democratic for millenia. The democratic and/or "federalized" Native societies actually inspired a lot of European politic philosophy during the Enlightenment and influenced the formation and evolution of the United States.

All hail great America?
According to this timeline, it appears that Americans brought democracy to Australia. And when the English Empire started the Colony in Australia they were still living under a fuedal system.
(Truth be known, the person who made this map wasn't really sure what that big place down past Vietnam was even called, but knew they were neither Communist nor in Africa. So they looked it up, and discovered General McArthur was there during WWII, so obviously it had something to do with America.)

A) I really wish they kept time linear to give a sense of scale of the various systems.

B) Very Eurocentric. According to this, every land south of the equator was led by "kings, tribes and tyrants" until the 1st World War.

It is not a democratic republic. If you insist on qualifiers then it is an oligarchic republic.

Fascism, democracy, feudalism etc. are NOT political economies, but rather very simplifying terms for political systems.

What about the Eastern World? They just _don't exist_ in this sketch at all. According to this sketch, the whole rest of the world might as well be 'uncharted territory'.

I really disliked this. It's unbelievable that something like this can make me so ridiculously angry.

This is interesting but is completely Euro-centric, and ignores the most advanced (for most of human history) and longest governing structure of China. China was the dominating civilization of the world, but just because it wanted to be secluded from foreign influences (ie Europe) it is completely ignored. The continual ignorance of Westernized History is astounding.

I like the Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, which has political maps of the world by decade:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm

The ideological content of the video is clear. The term "nationalism" is being used incorrectly as a label to contrast with "dewocracy," as several people point out. But totally missing is the analysis of "patrimonialism" by Max Weber in Economy and Society. What we tend to call feudalism is only one form of Patrimonialism. In Weber's set of ideal types it is patriarchy, prebendal patrimonialism and feudal patrimonialism. My own research about Indonesia has emphasized the importance of patrimonial prebendalism as an ideal type model.