The Minard System

A pioneer in the representation of statistical data, the French engineer in civil engineering Charles-Joseph Minard has made of his maps and tables tools allowing to understand the social and economic upheavals which transform Europe and the rest of the world to the time of the industrial revolution of the second half of the 19th century. While the remarkable flow map he created to represent Napoleon's campaign in Russia is considered one of the most extraordinary visualizations of data ever produced, his much larger work remains unrecognized. Minard produced a set of statistical representations whose influence is still noticeable today in the field of graphical and visual representations of data. The Minard System highlights the processes implemented in their invention. The book, which portrays the man and traces his career, reproduces the remarkable drawings from the collection of the National School of Bridges and Roads in Paris where he was a teacher and shows for the first time the entirety of his achievements. Sandra Rendgen, Joost Grootens