This follows the pattern of the other three - beautiful production values, and an authoritative view (some might say didactic!) of design as applied to the graphical display of information. The book was originally published in 1990; the copy I have is the 10th printing from 2005.

The book has six chapters: Escaping Flatland, Micro/Macro Readings, Layering and Separation, Small Multiples, Color and Information, Narratives of Space and Time, and finally a brief Epilogue.

The first chapter (Escaping Flatland) explores the representation of our three dimensional world in the two dimensions of the printed page. From minor examples (such as the moulted toad skin as a two dimensional representation of the three dimensional toad!), he proceeds to the major examples of Galileo's description of sunspot activity - this leads through to 20th century compilations of sunspot data in more abstract form. Other examples of displaying spatial information on the printed page include the diagrammatic notation of dance movements. Perhaps I am a bit dense, but where I found the sunspot diagrams easy to understand, dance notation was too complex. Via some lovely city maps drawn as three dimensional illustrations of cityscapes, this material seques neatly into the second chapter, which concerns to assembly of smaller details to a larger whole (Micro/macro readings). Standout examples include a discussion of the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington,DC. ( )

A must-read for anyone in the field of information design, not to mention a refreshing counterpoint to the PowerPoint credo of our day. Envisioning Information is a visually sumptuous book with page after page of remarkable examples through history of multi-dimensional data adroitly transcribed to the 2D surface (a.k.a. flatland). ( )

Splendid spectrum of examples for visual display ( )

Beautiful book, important message.

This seems a further evolution or departure from his early works. Perhaps necessarily so. Unlike his seminal work being philosophical and symbolic; this one is instructional and didactic. The book has a ton of eye candy that is while not amazing is certainly striking and memorable. The book is cleverly split into only six main segments/themes. Within each there's about 2-3 points, so laconic overall. However each of the points/truths is non intuitive and valuable. All the pics/charts/visuals go to back these up. ( )