art history – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte

By Scott J. Pearson | December 30, 2024December 30, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Edward Tufte’s books on data visualization are nothing short of legend among us information geeks. A political scientist by training, he demonstrates how well-conceived visualizations can effectively communicate insights and how shortcomings can create catastrophes. He continues his famous series on visual imagination with this book on the intersection of data and art. He shows how displays of evidence can move readers much like art and how poorly constructed displays can inhibit good judgment. Tufte’s…

Leonardo da Vinci

By Scott J. Pearson | November 23, 2019November 23, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

With biographies of Steve Jobs, Einstein, and now Leonardo, Walter Isaacson has become America’s foremost biographer of intellectuals. In this work, which tracks the prodigious creative output of a genius, Isaacson tries to piece together a narrative from a series of artistic, scientific, and engineering feats and, of course, from Leonardo’s own diaries. That is a difficult chore to achieve about a man from over 500 years ago. It’s even more difficult to think that…