Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE METRIC SYSTEM?

John Bemelmans Marciano

How America Kept Its Feet

The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to behold with its esoteric, inconsistent standards: twelve inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, sixteen ounces in a pound, one hundred pennies to the dollar. For something as elemental as counting and estimating the world around us, it seems like a confusing tool to use. So how did we end up with it?

Most of the rest of the world is on the metric system, and for a time in the 1970s America appeared ready to make the switch. Yet it never happened, and the reasons for that get to the root of who we think we are, just as the measurements are woven into the ways we think. John Marciano chronicles the origins of measurement systems, the kaleidoscopic array of standards throughout Europe and the thirteen American colonies, the combination of intellect and circumstance that resulted in the metric system’s creation in France in the wake of the French Revolution, and America’s stubborn adherence to the hybrid United States Customary System ever since. As much as it is a tale of quarters and tenths, it is a human drama, replete with great inventors, visionary presidents, obsessive activists, and science-loving technocrats.

Anyone who reads this inquisitive, engaging story will never read Robert Frost’s line “miles to go before I sleep” or eat a foot-long sub again without wondering, Whatever happened to the metric system?

John Bemelmans Marciano is the author and illustrator of many books, including the distinctive reference titles Anonyponymous and Toponymity, as well as the children’s books Madeline at the White House (a New York Times bestseller), Madeline and the Cats of Rome, and Harold’s Tail. A word and math aficionado, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife, daughter, and two cats.

Available products
Book Published 2014-08-01 by Bloomsbury
Book Published 2014-08-01 by Bloomsbury

Comments

Engagingly tells the tragicomic story of how two hundred years ago the United States led the world in adopting a decimal currency, but now lags behind the world in adopting decimal weights and measures, and how many Americans are proud of this stubbornness.

A lively perspective on globalism as it relates to currency and systems of measurement.

In this clever and easy-to-read history, John Marciano offers a convincing explanation of why America is out of step...Rich in riveting stories, this is an intriguing and informative book.

John Bemelmans Marciano tells an unexpectedly rich tale spanning three centuries, the American and French revolutions, and the emergence of modern Europe. How could the United States be the first large nation to decimalize currency and almost nothing else? The continued use of the foot, the gallon, the pound, and the bushel, in spite of practice in the rest of the world, and in spite of the w ishes of the nation's founding fathers and subsequent generations of leaders, sheds new light on American exceptionalism. A great read.

Marciano writes with humor and a keen eye, and his fascinating tales reveal how extensively measurement has affected history.