I own all of Edward Tufte's books, and regularly order his booklets for my MBA students.  The reason is simple:  to make good decisions, and to help others make good decisions, one must convey data as information and not simply as numbers, words, or even pictures.  Business periodicals regularly violate the admonitions we learned in our introductory statistics courses, including failing to use zero as the bottom of any scale (these periodicals don't use zero in order to exaggerate changes).  The reason that intelligent people convey data inappropriately is either to deliberately distort it, or because they've failed to read Tufte's books.<br><br>Once you've purchased this first book by Tufte, you will never look at charts or other graphical displays without a jaundiced eye.  You will also will begin to be more honest in how you convey information to others.  You will make better decisions, and you will raise the standard for other communicators and decision makers.  Life and death decisions do get made on the basis of data, and not just in the sciences and medicine.  Buy this book and you will have a very tough time putting it down.<br><br>Aneil Mishra<br>[...]