Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the ... (ISBN 0802713963)

How Surveyors Defined the Lives of Americans:
The new United States ran up a huge debt during the War for Independence. In the days before income taxes, the government turned to selling off federal lands to pay it down. But until lands were surveyed, they couldn't be sold. The need for funds was urgent, so surveys had to be completed quickly. The expedient solution was to use grids based on the 66-foot Gunter's Chain, ignoring natural features such as mountains and rivers. Today, the layouts of Cleveland, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon--in fact most cities west of the Ohio River--owe the orientation and spacing of their street grids to an army of surveyors dragging their standardized chains behind them. The social impacts of this process are unexpected: Rampant land speculation and manipulation for one; Social isolation of Midwestern farming families for another. Along the way, we learn about the struggle to resolve confusion over measures: In 18th-Century England, bushels could be of eight different sizes, each filled in either of two ways--heaped up or struck off level. Standardization was needed, but the opportunity to decimalize was missed, leaving the United States as the only non-metric country today. The default surveyors' standard used was the chain--because of tradition, not by conscious choice. Our 640-acre sections and our quarter-acre suburban lots are all based on this 400-year-old measure. This wonderfully detailed book is about much more than measurement. It explains the novel idea that property can be bought and sold--a concept that came to Europe much later. It demonstrates how much of the vitality of the young United States came from opportunities provided to its citizens through acquiring land. Informative, interesting, very readable and highly recommended.

Working On The Chain Gang:
In his book Measuring America, Andro Linklater does a very good job at surveying the history of land surveys in Europe and the United States and the reason why the length 22 yards is so darn important. Starting in England with the end of feudalism and the beginning of private land ownership, Linklater eventually crosses the Atlantic and focuses on surveying and private land ownership in the expanding United States of America. The author shows that the Gunter's chain, a 22 yard surveying instrument, is the only constant measure through hundreds of years of Western Civilization and has left its mark all across America as the basis of our public land surveys. I know this all too well - the high school where I teach sits on a 40 acre square (well, there is the little piece across the street added later for the farm, but the original campus is 40 acres) or 440 yards by 440 yards (20 chains by 20 chains). This area is also a 1/4 of a 1/4 of a section in the US public land survey and is squared off with sides running exactly north-south and east-west. It makes it easier to teach about maps and directions, but imposing squares on an undulating landscape has always seemed against our better knowledge of ecological principles. I think my biggest gain from reading Measuring America was learning of a reason to feel better about all the squares - Linklater makes the case that the squares are more democratic. I wish Linklater had tied all his important points together more tightly and hence the 4 star rating. Measuring America is quite an education and well worth the read.

Good but many inaccuracies:
Linklater's book is a very easy read but is obviously done, not by a historian, but a journalist interested in history. Many historical inaccuracies appear in the book that would not have appeared if there had been anyone checking for accuracy. Linklater states that there were three original signers of the Declaration of Independence (there were 5), a major mistake that should have been caught. Another is the fact that he doesn't know one Native Indian tribe from the other and misquotes his sources, when he bothers to note them. Writing a book on both history and science requires that the individual writing such a book should at least have someone double checking his or her accuracy. There is no or little documentation of where he gets his sources. His sources are mentioned by page number at the end of the book and you have to guess which quote or information is being referenced. No end notes or footnotes exist. As a historian, I have no idea whether or not the scientific end of this book is just as flawed or not, but does make it slightly suspect. However, Linklater gives an excellent representation of the times, the people involved and the places in surveying and laying out the Trans-Appalachian West. His character portraits are interesting to read, giving people like Washington, Jefferson, and less known persons such as Masseneh Cutler and Ferdinand Hassler a human look to the reader. The writing is in narrative format and not difficult. In fact, it's probably the only book that will actually have the non-scientific reader understanding what all the various confusing measurements mean! Linklater is a good author, he just needs to have someone go over his facts a bit more strenously and get a better format for his research and his book.

The History of How America Expanded From the Eyes of Its Surveyors:
This is a phenominal read for any thinking person with a general knowledge of American History and an interest in technology, politics, and science. It is the story of the measurement of the continental US - starting with the application of the instruments and techniques of Europe to the mountains, forests, swamps and plains of the American Repubic - and of the development of American technology and standards to meet the needs - and the story of this land measurement overlaying and contending with the existing land measurement systems of the other colonizers. It is a story of personal heroism of the explorers and surveryors in marking out a continent and transforming the wilderness into cities and farms, the story of greed and claim jumping, the story of how the law learned to cope with all of the issues. Seldom is a book interesting both as to science and technology and history and people at the same time, but this work is fascinating on every page. I've never seen anything like it other than Boorstein's The Discoverers.

How we measure, market, and possess our geographical space has impacted our politics and our people immensely:
Account of weights and measures in America, with particular attention to the relationship between the land, the people, and the system of surveying the land. How we measure, market, and possess our geographical space has impacted our politics and our people immensely, Linklater argues. He also traces the history of the metric system, and its creation and growth at the same time that the US and England were pursuing their own (and finally failed) attempts at new decimal-based weights and measures.