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I disagree. I see about the same amount of information on the maps in the article in comparison to maps of the war in Ukraine. The maps in the article are certainly prettier, but not more informative.

I think your complaint about the "linear recounting" has more to do with the nature of the war in Ukraine compared to WW2. The battle in Ukraine is almost entirely on land, while in the WW2 maps the majority of the maps are focused on sea lines of communications and air bases. The front lines in Ukraine aren't static by any means, but compared to WW2 these lines are barely moving.

> the decrease in expectation of the readership to have much comprehension or critical thinking facility

> the gutting of the news media as an industry where career professionals could get and keep lifetime experience in understanding important events and their place in history

I think you have certain per-conceived notions and are trying to justify them in these maps, rather than the other way around. I've read old newspaper articles and really don't see any "decrease in expectation of the readership". As for the "gutting of the news media," I think there is some truth their, but I don't think you should denigrate the journalists of today. Recall that Ernie Pyle, perhaps the most famous war correspondents of WW2, before the war was a human interest writer.

I don't agree.

Part of the issue is that World War II is a vastly more complex situation than the Russo-Ukrainian war; it's really not so much a war as it is an overlapping mess of several smaller wars, with a large amount of rapid geographical alterations in a short timeframe. To explain to people in September 1939 what's going on, you have to bring up the Saarland, Sudetenland, Danzig, the Polish Corridor, the dismemberment of Austria and Czechoslovakia... and that's before Germany actually invades Poland. For the Russo-Ukrainian war, you need to bring up... Crimea, the Donbass, and maaaaybe Transdnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia if you're trying to build a wider geopolitical picture. And most maps you see do highlight Crimea and the Donbass!

As the war progresses, World War II grows in massive scale, so that places like Tobruk became important locations for the strategic aspect of the war, and even a well-informed individual would have been hard-pressed to locate Tobruk before then. So you need to highlight this town in North Africa, and then explicate why a town in North Africa is important in the context of a literal world-wide war. By contrast, Ukraine is far smaller than the entire world, and even an important linchpin like Vuhledar has only the significance of, say, Bastogne in WW2.

Or maybe it's because they're busy fighting a war and trying not to die so that they haven't had the time to provide records for the historians and analysts to ruminate over.

> The modern maps, while technically more "accurate" than hand-drawn diagrams, are almost shockingly light on information in comparison, and the accompanying text is a linear recounting of various advances and retreats with only passing explanation of the strategic importance of either.

Feels like both are light on information. But what do you expect? It's war time propaganda. It isn't meant to educate or inform. The news during war is not the same as it is during peacetime. They serve different goals. Whether it's ukraine. Gaza. Or ww2.

> one is the decrease in expectation of the readership to have much comprehension or critical thinking facility, which is counterintuitive given supposed strides in education over the last eighty years.

Mass education was never meant to increase critical thinking. Mass education exists to brainwash and instill conformity. The modern education system was created by the prussians in the 1800s to "educate" the peoples of the various germanic states into one single nation. It's the same education system adopted by the US and much of the world.

> and it seems obvious that the writers at the NYT have just not been given the resources or motivation to become as familiar with the contours of the conflict as the writers of the past.

Because NYT reporters were so familiar with the contours of iraq and their wmd program? If someone gave the NYT a trillion dollars, what would change? Nothing. The reporting would be the same. Especially when it comes to wars.

When you read war propaganda from the past ( pick any war ) or in any country, it's remarkable how similar they all are.

  Mass education exists to brainwash and instill conformity.

That is a grotesque distortion. A century ago, most of the world was illiterate and innumerate.

> That is a grotesque distortion.

It's the truth. Go look it up.

> A century ago, most of the world was illiterate and innumerate.

Yeah. That's the point. Far easier to brainwash literate people. Far easier to get literate people to conform. Especially when you train them since they are young.

I'm not sure it is easier. There's always finger puppets or pantomime.