James Vincent

Beyond Measure

Danny White

The driving cultural force of that form of life we call ‘modern’ is the idea, the hope and desire, that we can make the world controllable. Yet it is only in encountering the uncontrollable that we really experience the world

...shocking regularity in society’s workings. Even the most passionate activities – marriage and murder, for example – seemed to barely differ year by year in many countries

Instead of living in a realm constructed from overlapping forms of human experience and action, we operate inside an empire of numbers, symbols, and models, and, as a result, lose connection to both one another and our sense of self-identity.

altlovesbooks

"Measurement is a tool that reinforces what we find important in life, what awe think is worth paying attention to. The question, then, of who gets to make those choices is of the utmost importance."

This book was a struggle for me. At no point did I feel drawn into the history and science of measurement, and normally I'm all about taken-for-granted concept books like this. There's clearly something here, and it's very well researched, it just felt tedious and maybe not what I was looking for in my non-fiction today.

Rather than a discussion of numbers, this book deep dives into the history and meaning behind why we measure things to begin with. I really did appreciate the look at who developed measurements and why, and why we bother measuring things in the first place. It's important to know who's doling out the food according to what measurement, because historical you might be getting screwed and don't realize it. 

This exhaustive deep dive, though, was just that for me--exhausting. Maybe this just wasn't the concept book for me, I don't know. Props to the author for the extensive research.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

As if Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott were combined with measurement as the anchor. I went in expecting a history lesson and left with much more.

Beyond Measure

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