Thinking about how we represent history has been a question that has occupied us for millennia.  Why does chronology of events matter?  What can it show?  How can we represent history?

In his Introduction, Grafton observes that “Teachers and theorists claimed, over and over again, that chronology and geography were the two eyes of history: sources of precise, unquestionable information, which introduced order to the apparent chaos of events” (Grafton, p. 17)

In the process of compiling your entries for the collective 1740s Timemapper and the Powell Diary Timeglider how have you come to terms with the complex relationship between ideas and modes of representation?  How have the two modes of representation “clarified” historical events?  What might they also have obscured?  Does a line tell us a story?  Or just chronology?

Write a 300-word blog on this topic.  Include at least three points from Grafton’s Introduction in your entry and at least two illustrative screen shots from both the Timemapper and the Timeglider. Post under category “Contextual Research” and Blog #3.

In addition, choose one of your classmates’ posts and give them feedback in the Comment box. Your comment should be 50-75 words in length and respond to a specific argument that is made in the post. For example, your comment might identify a correlation between your own post and one you see in your classmate’s work; it might introduce to the post’s author a different reading of something they interpreted in the Grafton essay; or it might reflect upon ways in which you both consider Powell’s experience within a larger chronological landscape.