h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have a book somewhere regarding the presentation of information. The idea is an elaboration on the concept of a picture being worth a thousand words, combined with the "KISS" principle ("Keep It Simple, Stupid"). A familiar example is the Tube Map for the London Underground, a methodology adopted for undergrounds (subways in the US) in other cities. While not to scale, the simple straight lines with evenly spaced stations are almost immediately understandable.

The book has a map of Napolean's march into and out of Russia. The width of the route reflects the size of his army. Its very telling as the wide river flowing into Russia becomes a small trickle of a stream flowing back out.

Interesting. Tell me, did this map focus at any towns or cities?

I ask because when I was writing this i came across an article that said that a mass grave had been found near the capital of Lituania (Riga?), a stronghold of Napoleon's army in this campaign. Initially they thought that this was a mass grave due to 1940s SS activity but soon discovered artifacts dating it to Napoleon's time.

Apparently this was a place where there was a mass starvation of troops. By this account Boney himself was back in France trying to raise yet another army.
Raising an army was easy it seems, it was the loss of horses that really did for him later on.

I can't find the book which I had LONG ago, I suspect it went to the reseller shop. It *might* have been titled "The Book of Maps", but I may be confusing two books. Also, a quick search at Amazon turned up nothing, I'm sure the book is long out of print.

I also saw the story about the mass grave, I think it was near Vilnius, Lithuania (my wife's grandparents were born in Lithuania). I can't recall the details of the map, but it may have gone through that area.

Vilnius, that was it.
Shame about the book, never mind.

You mean this map?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png

Gif

That looks like it.