I use this term to mean something similar to the term “supply chain” in commerce (or “chain of command” in the military) with respect to the sequence of analytical steps one must take in bringing together diverse pieces of information for the purposes of answering a question about an issue we want to comprehend to the fullest extent possible. For example: the answer to the question why did World War I (1914-1918) happen would involve a chain of analysis that would begin with the decay of the Ottoman Empire and end with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by a Serbian student (Gavrilo Princip). Within this chain of analysis, one would also have to consider, of course, the rise of European nationalism as new nation states and empires emerged on the heels of the emergence and spread of industrial capitalism in Europe.