Includes bibliographical references (p. [177]-184) and index.

I: William Playfair and the origins of graphical display -- Why playfair? -- Who was playfair? / Ian Spence and Howard Wainer -- William Playfair: a daring worthless fellow / Ian Spence and Howard Wainer -- Scaling the heights (and widths) -- A priestley view of international currency exchanges -- Toms veggies and the American way -- The graphical inventions of Dubourg and Ferguson: two precursors to William Playfair -- Winds across Europe: Francis Galton and the graphic discovery of weather patterns -- II: Using graphical displays to understand the modern world -- A graphical investigation of the scourge of Vietnam -- Two mind-bending statistical paradoxes -- Order in the court -- No order in the court -- Like a trout in the milk -- Scaling the market -- Sex, smoking, and life insurance: a graphical view -- There they go again ! -- Sex and sports: how quickly are women gaining? -- Clear thinking made visible: redesigning score reports for students -- III: Graphical displays in the twenty-first century -- John Wilder Tukey: the father of twenty-first-century graphical display -- Graphical tools for the twenty-first century: I. Spinning and slicing -- Graphical tools for the twenty-first century: II. Nearness and smoothing engines -- A selection of anomalies -- Dramatis personae.