Alexandra Savina, Researcher of the Quantitative Analysis and Economic Effects Department at the Gaidar Institute, prepared a review of the book by Friendly Michael and Wainer Howard ”A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication”, recently released by the Gaidar Institute Press.
The book tells in details about the most iconic and intriguing data visualizations in history. The range of topics and examples is incredibly wide:
- from the first "statistical" observations of the Nile floods in the 7th century CE to the identification of a link between the 19th-century London cholera outbreak and the Broad Street pump;
- from early attempts to estimate the longitude distance from Rome to Toledo (M.F. van Langren, 1644) to the ingenious presentation of passenger train timetables between Paris and Lyon as visual graphs (E.-J. Marey, 1878);
- from Huygens's first survival curve, constructed from London mortality bulletins (1669), to Perozzo's pioneering 3D visualization of Swedish census data (1881).
Although authors did not establish a strict classification of data visualization methods, they touched on all key areas in one way or another. Perhaps most prominently, maps and cartograms received the most attention. However, the reader will find a wide variety of visualization formats within the book's pages: scatterplots and line graphs of time series; familiar bar and pie charts; two-sided histograms, radial and star charts, and mosaic charts; ridge plots, and many other, more specialized variations. There are even unusual examples of combining different types of graphs and charts in a single illustration, or even tabular and graphical data representations.
Especially noteworthy is how authors reinterpreted historical charts using modern standards and tools. This allows to fully appreciate the talent of visualization pioneers who created their masterpieces centuries ago under severe constraints. Striking examples are as follows:
- a scatter plot according of Farr's data, clearly showing the relationship between cholera mortality in London, the height above the Thames, and water supply sources;
- a classic time series of Playfair's data, more clearly demonstrating the downward trend over time in the wheat price-wage ratio.
However, in the final chapter, authors even did an elegant experiment: they applied Charles Minard's signature approach to constructing flow maps, transferring it to completely different data, i.e., on the Great Migration to the United States in the mid-20th century.
Perhaps, a rather weak introductory chapter can be attributed to small downside. Authors attempt to briefly outline key milestones in the history of data visualization. They begin with cave paintings, sometimes rather bravely calling them infographics, and ancient maps created long before the Common Era, and then leap immediately to scholars of the 15th and 16th centuries. However, this shortcoming can be easily forgiven: most of the truly interesting examples, only briefly touched upon in the introduction, are explored in much greater detail in subsequent chapters.
The publication leaves an exceptionally pleasant impression: it harmoniously combines an academic foundation with a light, engaging presentation. At the end of the book, there is a substantial list of sources and additional materials, which authors actively refer to throughout the narrative. Readers will find numerous references to rare historical maps and atlases, as well as key works by recognized experts in data visualization. This makes the publication an excellent starting point for anyone just beginning to explore the topic.