Understanding USA, Tufte and Napoleon's Retreat

Deep in one of my favourited blogs of the moment, Communication Nation, there is a post about the website www.understandingusa.com/. It is a fantastic visual breakdown of the USA. It would be even better if I could enlarge every page so I could look at it in the detail it deserves.

What is so good about it, is the thinking behind the illustratations; that information can be presented in an interesting way, to make it more meaningful and more engaging. The master of this is Edward Tufte, and in particular his book 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information' . Amongst a load of stuff it contains the classic map by Charles Minard depicting the losses suffered by Napoleon's during the 1812 Russian campaign.

It is a little difficult to read above so try here, or just buy Tufte's book. The map, apparently, has six variables plotted - the size of the army, its location on a two-dimensional surface, the direction of the army's movement, and the temperature at various dates on the retreat from Moscow. Tufte claims "it may be the best statistical graph ever drawn".