{"product_id":"measuring-america-isbn-9780452284593","title":"Measuring America","description":"In 1790, America was in enormous debt, having depleted what little money and supplies the country had during its victorious fight for independence. Before the nation's greatest asset, the land west of the Ohio River, could be sold it had to be measured out and mapped. And before that could be done, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic out of the morass of roughly 100,000 different units that were in use in daily life.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMeasuring America\u003c\/b\u003e tells the fascinating story of how we ultimately gained the American Customary System—the last traditional system in the world—and how one man's surveying chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast.\u003c\/p\u003eMeasuring AmericaIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne: The Invention of Landed Property\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo: Precise Confusion\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThree: Who Owned America?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFour: Life, Liberty, or What?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFive: Simple Arithmatic\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSix: A Line Drawn in the Wilderness\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeven: The French Dimension\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEight: Democratic Decimals\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNine: The Birth of the Metric System\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTen: Dombey's Luck\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEleven: The End of Putnam\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwelve: The Immaculate Grid\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThirteen: The Shape of Cities\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFourteen: Hassler's Passion\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFifteen: The Dispossesed\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSixteen: The Limit of Enclosure\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeventeen: Four Against Ten\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEighteen: Metric Triumphant\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEpilogue: The Witness Tree\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eAppendix: General Tables of Units of Measurement\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eBibliography\u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e\"[Linklater] has the talent not just to let us know how things work, but to make us want to know...A magical mystery tour that leaves the reader both mildly footsore and exhilarated by unexpected connections.\" —\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"What's great about history, when done well, is how even the most familiar topics, from the American Revolution to WWII, can be revisited again and again, not just to retell stories but to offer a fresh perspective. That is what Andro Linklater does in Measuring America.\" —\u003cb\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Remarkable...Linklater traces with unusual elegance and a keen wit the epic story of measuring our nation, charting the process by which, with each length of the surveyor's chain, new states were literally bought into being.\" —\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAndro Linklater\u003c\/b\u003e (1944–2013) was a journalist, biographer, and author. Linklater was most known for exploring the history of property ownership in America in his work. His books include \u003ci\u003eThe Fabric of America\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMeasuring America\u003c\/i\u003e. He died at age 68 of a heart attack while researching for a new book on the history of land possession in the Hebrides.","brand":"Plume","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302754668773,"sku":"NP9780452284593","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780452284593.jpg?v=1767732479","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/measuring-america-isbn-9780452284593","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}