Political map of the Middle East

Here’s a lovely and fascinating Flash map of the Middle East/Eastern Med/etc, with an animation showing the rise and fall of controlling powers for the last three thousand years or so. I love this sort of thing, in part because it reinforces the idea that ‘stability’ and ‘permanence’ exist maybe on the scale of cities, but are otherwise a bit meaningless. Then again, I also like these maps because they remind me of Vinci, a board game that magnificently captures that grand sweep of the growth and decline of civilisations.

The bit that’s weird is that the hosting site, Maps of War, is otherwise… well, scroll down a bit and tell me what you think of their map ‘Iraqi Pressure-vault.’ Er… huh? Thanks, that makes things much… um… clearer.