Download or read book Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary written by William Playfair and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scientific revolution began at the end of the eighteenth century with the invention and popularization of the graphic display of data by the remarkable Scot, William Playfair. His marvellous Atlas showed how much could be learned if one plotted data atheoretically and looked for suggestive patterns. Those patterns provide evidence, albeit circumstantial, on which to build new science. Playfair's work has much to teach us, but finding a copy has been almost impossible. Until now. This full colour reproduction of two of his classic works, with new explanatory material, makes Playfair's wisdom widely available for the first time in two centuries.