I should add that this submission was inspired by the discussion yesterday about the 1914 map of travel times from London: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id

I should add that this submission was inspired by the discussion yesterday about the 1914 map of travel times from London: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10647586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10647586 Fernand Braudel is one of those people who specialists in a field all recognize as a revolutionary figure but the general public doesn't seem to know about. In my view he's probably the most influential historian of the 20th century, not least because of his innovative way of thinking about data visualization and mapping. His work ended up leading to some very early experiments with what we now call digital humanities among his various acolytes in France and the US, back in the punched card era. Interesting guy. Edit: forgot to mention a famous bit of lore about the book these maps came from - he actually wrote the original draft of it when he was a member of the French Resistance imprisoned in a Nazi POW camp.