Arno Peters (22 May 1916 – 2 December 2002) was a German historian who developed the Peters world map, based on the

Gall–Peters projection The Gall–Peters projection is a rectangular, equal-area map projection. Like all equal-area projections, it distorts most shapes. It is a cylindrical equal-area projection with latitudes 45° north and south as the regions on the map that hav ...

Biography

Peters was born in Berlin. In childhood he lived in Berlin, Germany, with his brother, Werner and his parents Lucy and Bruno. The family often entertained foreign guests, and he was exposed to social activism because of his parents' role in the labor union movement. His father was briefly incarcerated by the

Nazi regime Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

toward the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Peters competed as both a cyclist and a swimmer in high school, receiving titles in both. Peters began his career in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

in the late 1930s, studying American filmmaking. Returning to Germany after studying film in Hollywood, Peters was able to improve the German production process, and in 1940 he released a film of his own, ''Immer Nur Du'', a modern musical. At the age of 25 he was the youngest German filmmaker of the time. After attaining his doctorate from the

Friedrich-Wilhelm University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of ...

in history of art and journalism in 1945, Peters began his academic research of synchronoptic world history. This topic was introduced to him during college and formed a large part of his dissertation, titled ''Film as a Means of Public Leadership''. Though Peters discussed his world map as early as 1967, he did not start promoting it until a press conference in Bonn in May 1973. In 1974 Peters founded the Institute for Universal History in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

, Germany, where he served as director. He was awarded an honorary professorship by the

University of Bremen The University of Bremen (German: ''Universität Bremen'') is a public university in Bremen, Germany, with approximately 23,500 people from 115 countries. It is one of 11 institutions which were successful in the category "Institutional Strategi ...

and worked in Bremen until his death on 2 December 2002.

Work

Spurred by his interest in political propaganda, he spent much of his academic life studying synchronoptic world history, which focuses on all areas of the world equally. Out of these studies came his "synchronoptic world history" timeline, devoting the same space to all areas and times of the world simultaneously, spanning 1000 BC to 1952 AD, based on the theory that viewing all civilizations and countries concurrently shows relationships and influences that might not otherwise be obvious. Published in 1952, it presaged his world map. In these activities Peters developed a belief in the

Eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world ...

bias of most maps. Since he could not find a map that satisfied him, Peters developed one himself. In 1974 he announced the Peters world map, claiming it was the most accurate representation of the world. The map engendered controversy. The

map projection In cartography, map projection is the term used to describe a broad set of transformations employed to represent the two-dimensional curved surface of a globe on a plane. In a map projection, coordinates, often expressed as latitude and longitud ...

Peters claimed to have developed had been presented more than a century earlier by the Reverend

James Gall James Gall (27 September 1808 – 7 February 1895) was a Scottish clergyman who founded the Carrubbers Close Mission. He was also a cartographer, publisher, sculptor, astronomer and author. In cartography he gives his name to three differe ...

, and, despite Peters's claims, the projection was not the first or only equal-area projection. Many other of his claims were disputed or debunked. Despite criticism, over 80 million of Peters's maps have been distributed worldwide. In 1989 Peters published ''The Peters Atlas of the World'', which at the time was the only atlas that represented all areas on about the same scale.

References

External links

Stefan Müller: "Equal Representation of Time and Space: Arno Peters' Universal History", in: ''History Compass'', vol. 8 (2010) no. 7, p. 718–729.

''New Internationalist'' magazine obituary

''Time'' magazine commentary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peters, Arno 1916 births 2002 deaths German cartographers Humboldt University of Berlin alumni German male non-fiction writers 20th-century German historians 20th-century cartographers

Biography

Work

See also

References

External links