The State of the U.S.A. Atlas: The Changing Face of American Life in Maps and Graphics

The statistics and graphics in The State of the U.S.A. Atlas (1994) are significantly dated at this point, so it is not a book I can recommend highly. But Doug Henwood does a superb job of showing how to intelligently interpret economic and social data. I had the pleasure of first reading this book as a college student, and Henwood's witty, precise, and informative prose buried in the footnotes was nothing less than a revelation.