Neither Subject

 Neither subject sounds particularly enticing — at least to me, or to the version of me that existed before encountering Dennis Duncan’s INDEX, A History of the and James Vincent’s BEYOND MEASURE, both of which I reviewed this year. Each book shows how spectacular technological progress rests on humble foundations, and how controversial those humble foundations have historically been. I learned from Duncan that the invention of the page number — which made it easier to index the information contained in a book — was initially seen as a conspicuous interruption, cleaving paragraphs, sentences and even words. I learned from Vincent that standardized measurements have long been a way to build trust both within and across communities — and have therefore elicited suspicion.

Threaded throughout both books are startling stories of upheaval and moral panic. Indexes could be weaponized, their pithy entries suitable for an attack on an adversary or the propagation of a conspiracy theory. A rallying point for pro-Brexit forces was the example of British shopkeepers prosecuted for selling produce in imperial pounds instead of kilos. Anti-metric fury has become such a populist cause that it even garnered an entire segment on Tucker Carlson’s show, in which he fulminated against the metric systemas a tyrannical tool of global elites.

Of course, neither Duncan’s book nor Vincent’s would work if it wasn’t also crisply written, elucidating serious concepts with a light touch. It turns out that the most ordinary things are in fact extraordinarily strange. Who knew?

Jennifer Szalai in the NY Times