Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Kept Its Feet, by John Bemelmans Marciano
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The system of measurement for most of the world is the metric system, and for a time in the 1970s the United States appeared ready to switch from American standard measurement. The reasons it never happened get to the root of who we think we are, just as American 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 Whatever Happened to the Metric System? 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?
- Sales Rank: #323700 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-15
- Released on: 2015-09-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.33" h x .88" w x 5.52" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
Review
“An indispensable guide for understanding our world's centuries-long process of inching toward standardization.” ―Wall Street Journal
“National and international politics, treaties, wars--all play a role in seeing the full picture of the development of a system of measurements used by the vast majority of the world's countries. Marciano knits these seemingly disparate threads into a rich narrative.” ―New York Journal of Books
“Readers will see a different side of metric enthusiasts--including Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson--as Marciano uncovers the relationship between metric system advocates and social reform movements. Marciano writes with humor and a keen eye, and his fascinating tales reveal how extensively measurement has affected history.” ―Publishers Weekly
"Engaging." ―The New York Times
About the Author
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.
Most helpful customer reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating story of a compromise that works
By Robert Skole
The average American probably thinks in terms of the metric system only when talking about guns (9 mm. Glock, 105 mm cannon), drugs (81 mg baby aspirin, 10 kilo of marijuana seized by cops), booze (75 cl bottles of wine, 1.75 cl bottles of whiskey or vodka) and every four years, the Olympics (all those swimming and field events in meters and kilometers). And he or she never notices that the weights of contents of a can or package in the supermarket are marked in grams as well as ounces, thanks to a 1994 law mandating dual labeling.
And nobody seems to remember the 1970s drive to convert America to the metric system, one of the few remainders of which are mileage signs in kilometers in some states bordering Canada, to welcome Canadian tourists and to show we love them.
John Bemelmans Marciano tells the fascinating story of America's long history of efforts to get this country to simplify its standards of measurement, get them in line with those of France, an early standards world power, and finally to attempt to adopt the metric system wholeheartedly, as most of the rest of the world has done. It's a long history, going back to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Quincy Adams, all early proponents of using decimals, initially applied to coinage. On the 200th anniversary of the United States, President Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 to establish "a national policy of coordinating and planning for the increased use of the metric measurement system in the United States." Ronald Reagan killed that Board in 1982, and it disappeared without a whimper.
So we still use ounces and inches, pounds and yards, gallons and acres, you name it. But at least the dollar had been divided into 100 cents in the 1800s. And the American stock exchanges in 2001 switched to pricing stock in decimals, after using 16ths since the 1700s stock markets, which traded in Spanish pieces of eights.
But first, John Marciano tells the history of measurements and attempts at international standardization, and of how the metric system was created during the French Revolution. And for those who have long forgotten European History 101 (and who hasn't?) he tells the story, focusing on the role of measurements. Who knew there were hundreds of different systems on the Continent way into the 1800s? He describes how the industrial revolution, steam powered ships and railways, and international trade drove efforts to create internationally accepted standards, with strong forces pushing the metric system over "competing" systems. One development he fails to mention is the invention of the daguerreotype, the first practical photography system in 1839, donated to the world, except to England, by France. American daguerreotypists generally used a standard sized full plate, 6.5 x 8.5 inches (16.5 x 21.5 cm), that could be divided into smaller sizes, as half, quarter, sixth, ninth and 16th plate. A big "I never knew that" fact is that while the metric system was always promoted as boon to international commerce, the foot is used for what has meant more for trade than any recent development: the American "invention" of the 20-foot container, which is a world standard.
"Whatever happened to the metric system?" is a fascinating story, told clearly and introducing a wonderful group of metric and standardization enthusiasts, with one prize achievement being the creation of the Euro in the EU. Explaining "How Americans Kept Its Feet," Marciano writes: "Where converting to metric measures wouldn't be convenient, Americans have kept their customary measures and are glad of it." A perfect example is that auto engine sizes are now given in liters instead of cubic inches, while the same cars' fuel performance is given in miles per gallon.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Go metric
By César Chávez
Well written, but with massive historical, tangential departures from the title of the book. Only a small portion of this book addresses the failure to implement the metric system in the US in recent decades. Worst of all, the author clearly states his allegiance to the old imperial system and his belief that the US should not move any further in the metric direction. Ugggghhhh.......
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Metrics And Revolutions - A Great Scientific Read!
By DrPat
I found in this book a deep thought wrapped in small details: that revolution prepares the soil for change, but unless the seeds of change are planted in that season, it will wither and die.
The revolutions - scientific and political - of the 17th and 18th centuries provided an impetus as well as an environment for changing the way the world was measured. New governments wanted a system that would be, given the nature of the American and French revolutions, equal for all men.
Marciano has built the tale out of inches and grams of facts: the urge to standardize that grew in the infant republics of the U.S.A. and France, the desire of natural scientists to base measurements - time, volume and temperature, even justice, as much as distance - on a single standard that could be observed in nature, and the goal of setting up a system that would be "for all men and for all time".
Along the way, he shows us how the leading lights of these scientific and political radicals each made a contribution to (or battled with) the metrics that would become the SI/metric/European system, and details how the nature-based system was subverted by the partisan passions of the French revolutionaries, and then even more by Napoleon.
From there, Marciano shows why the metric measurement system failed to be adopted in the U.S., even while its currency was "decimalized" and its code of justice rationalized. That metrication failed not once, but four separate times between 1786 and now, Marciano shows to be due to a rational assessment of the cost of change and the inertia of public resistance once the revolution was complete.
My favorite quote from the book comes early: "I did think that Europeans do certain things better than Americans. In my heart of hearts, however, I never believed that one of them was the metric system."
By the way, if I could give fractional stars, this book would get 4 and 5/8ths stars, only because the charts were not easily visible on the Kindle (even with Zoom). I needed to open the book on my laptop Kindle Reader to enjoy the charts.
This is a book to enjoy for the science history as well as for the history of metrics. I got kilometers of enjoyment out of it!
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