Peter von Hall Knihy

Information may be beautiful, but our decisions about the data we choose to represent and how we represent it are never neutral. Peter A. Hall and Patricio Davila's insightful history traces how data visualization accompanied modern technologies of war, colonialism and the management of social issues of poverty, health and crime. Their discussion is based around seventy examples of visualization, from Florence Nightingale's diagrams of causes of mortality in the Crimean War to contemporary projects that show the true cost of coal and the fate of our rubbish, taking a participatory approach to visualizing cities. This analysis places visualization in its theoretical and cultural contexts, providing a critical framework for understanding the history of information design with new directions for contemporary practice.

It's the 60s during the Cold War, and Corporal Andy Hill is posted to RAF West Sanby as part of the technical team evaluating the new British surface to air missile programme, Red Hawk. While there, however, he has higher-authority additional orders to covertly investigate systems and personnel involved in the programme and to close down security weaknesses which had already resulted in leaked information to the Russians. In doing this, Corporal Hill goes up against an old enemy, the Russian, Major Garasov, whose desire for personal revenge is frustrated by Andy's successes in foiling KGB attempts to gain vital knowledge needed to enable Soviet control of the Red Hawk.Corporal Hill's budding romance has to take second place as he remains steadfast in his duty to his country and he never wavers until the job is done.

This Element documents long-term changes in the political attitudes of occupational groups, shifts in the salience of economic and cultural issues, and the movement of political parties in the electoral space from 1990 to 2018 in eight Western democracies.