The Toll of War Visualized

As what might become a major war breaks out in Europe for the first time in decades, and the specter of what could be a truly global catastrophe drifts into our peripheral vision, it's a moment to reflect on what it means to be human. I'll leave it primarily to philosophers, artists, and spiritual leaders for most of the words of wisdom in this moment. But I will not entirely cede the field.

I certainly can comment in my area of expertise, and there is no end in sight of data visualizations that can help remind ourselves of the costs of war and put it in perspective. In fact, many great visualizations are focused on this subject. Just a few for consideration are below.

Minard's most-famous work (arguably the most famous dataviz of all), of course, is about the invasion of Russia by Napoleon's French Army. This is an anti-war infographic, originally published alongside a similar visual of Hannibal's campaign from Spain and Italy. The entire point of both of these is to catalog the devastating losses of these armies during their respective campaigns.

Florence Nightingale's graphic depicting the causes of death during the Crimean War, which was not so much a commentary on the war itself, as a study of the health conditions in war-time hospitals. Her visual and related advocacy essentially birthed the field of hospital epidemiology and changed public health (as well as war and peacetime medicine) forever.

Neil Halloran's haunting Fallen of WWII is a powerful animated data visualization of the human toll from that last global war. The most memorable moment in that visualization for me is when it counts the Nazi and Russian deaths on the Eastern Front during the battle of Stalingrad and beyond. Watch the video and pay particular attention from 4:45-7:00 in the animation. At the very end of that sequence, there is a chilling depiction of the losses Russia sustained to help defeat the Nazis.

BTW, check out this interview with Neil from early in this series about his stunning project.

There are more great examples of the data of war being explored in a variety of ways. I encourage everyone to take a moment out of their day and consider these collections works of art/information.

Try to remember that every single icon or bar or line you see in a data visualization like this is about a human life - or maybe a thousand human lives. Try to step back from the anger and emotions of the politics, and the fear of the moment, and just think about the people involved.

Perhaps if we could all do this, there might one day be a time when these visualizations seem quaint and out of date. For now, they remain relevant, important, and references to revisit as we think about what kind of world we want to create in the future.

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