by James Vincent ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2022
An engaging book written with intelligence, self-awareness, and wit.
A survey of the history of measurement and how it has shaped human progress.
As journalist Vincent points out, measurement is so ubiquitous that we often don’t even think about it. His journey to the core of the science of creating accurate measurements—known as metrology—is punctuated with odd yet fascinating stops—e.g., Egypt, where, for centuries, people have measured “the bounty of the Nile, a liquid treasure metered out each year in floodwater and fertility”; the Swedish museum that houses the first Celsius thermometer; and a French vault that holds “the kilogram: what it weighs, every kilogram in the world weighs, no more and no less.” The author leads us leisurely through the history of measurement, beginning with the Babylonians, who first saw the usefulness of standardization, and progressing to the Romans, who developed metrics crucial for construction. Standardization was also a tool for control, especially via taxes. Gradually, measurement pushed societies away from faith and aristocracies and toward rationality and commerce. The metric system was a product of the French Revolution, replacing arbitrary measures like “the king’s foot,” and Napoleon was instrumental in spreading it. Most countries have since adopted the metric system, although it has not always been welcome. In the U.S., attempts to metricize measurement have been somewhat half-hearted, and the result is a uniquely mixed system. However, as Vincent shows, in the digital age, the desire to measure things and compile statistics has never been stronger. He discusses the Quantified Self movement, “a loose affiliation of individuals whose pursuit of ‘self-knowledge through numbers’ shows how far we have internalized the logic of measurement.” Vincent takes this no more seriously than he should and points out that standard measurements “are as much the product of accident and happenstance as careful deliberation.” He finds this comforting, an essential aspect of human creativity and the magic of the world.
An engaging book written with intelligence, self-awareness, and wit.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-03585-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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