The news cycle moves fast, and as one story is swiftly replaced by another, underlying causes and bigger (and smaller) questions often go unexplored. That's when you need the two most popular blogs on The Economist's website: the Economist Explains and its online sister, the Daily Chart. Together, these online giants provide answers to the kinds of questions, quirky and serious, that may be puzzling anyone interested in the world around them. Want to know how a tattoo affects your job prospects, which James Bond drinks the most martinis, or how to make an invisibility cloak? We have the answers.
Go Figure brings together for the first time the very best explainers and charts, written and created by top journalists from around the world to help us understand such brain-bending conundrums as why so many Koreans are called Kim, how bitcoin mining works and why the amount of dog poo on the streets of New York is seasonal. Subjects both topical and timeless, profound and peculiar, are explained with The Economist's trademark wit and verve.
The results are sometimes surprising, often intriguing and always enlightening.
Author Biography
Tom Standage is Deputy Editor of The Economist. He joined the magazine in 1998, and has been Technology Editor, Business Editor and Digital Editor. He is author of six books, including Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years and The Victorian Internet, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Wired.
