Rating: 
Summary: The Importance of Land Ownership
Review: Andro Linklater describes the importance of private property (land ownership) to the formation of a dynamic economy and a democratic government. The most urgent challenge facing the newly-independent United States in 1784 was how to pay for the war that won the country its independence; the debt of the new republic was enormous. The country's greatest asset was the land west of the Ohio River, but in order to sell this huge territory, the land had to be surveyed; measured and mapped. And, before that could be done, a uniform set of weights and measures had to be chosen for the new republic out of a morass of some 100,000 different units that were in use in daily life. This is the story of surveying and measuring and mapping and real estate. George Washington began as a surveyor. I read the pre-publication galley edition. I love this book and I understand the final hardcover edition has maps. Dan Poynter, ParaPublishing.com.
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Summary: The Squaring of America
Review: Andro Linklater is a Scottish journalist who fell in love with America when he was flying over it, looking out the window at "the spectacular grid of city blocks, the squared-off American Gothic farms, and the long, straight section roads that caught the imagination of Kerouac." Now he has written a fascinating book to tell us just how we got so square. _Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy_ (Walker) shows that geometry and land acquisition and speculation drove the development of the nation. The importance of simply measuring the land has reinforced for Americans the value of land ownership. Native Americans did not enclose or measure land, and thus they could not convincingly demonstrate (to those who wanted to take it from them) that they owned it. This pattern was true not just in America, but in, for example, South Africa and Australia. Patterns of demarcation even influenced regional character. In the South, the legislatures were dominated by landowners who relied upon local surveyors who did not use chains and theodolites, but instead relied on marked trees and memory. Such a system caused violent struggles, but it also meant that doubts over actual ownership inhibited speculation and transfer of land. In the North, farmers would settle, improve the land, sell, and move to another measured plat; in the south, owners kept the property for generations, and Linklater refers to the effect on southern literature of such patterns of survey and ownership as being good material for future scholarly research. The squares laid out in the 19th century did not help efficient farming, but they helped the financier, who could easily track the value of the squares; settlement was based on speculation. The squares impressed themselves on urban consciousness, too. The beautifully laid out Washington, D.C. with its frequent diagonals was seldom copied, as the grid alone was easier to lay out and to sell segmentally. Circleville, Ohio, was originally laid out as a series of rings and radians, but was quickly converted to a grid once people started residing there. In the latter part of the 19th century, Chief Seattle complained, "We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?" Fairly or not, logically or not, the answer was that marking the land made ownership, and ownership made America. Measuring the land and speculating in real estate might seem an unlikely subject for an interesting book, but this is a surprising and sometimes romantic tale. Linklater's readable history is a valuable commentary on a particular way we became particularly American.
Rating:
Summary: The Squaring of America
Review: Andro Linklater is a Scottish journalist who fell in love with America when he was flying over it, looking out the window at "the spectacular grid of city blocks, the squared-off American Gothic farms, and the long, straight section roads that caught the imagination of Kerouac." Now he has written a fascinating book to tell us just how we got so square. _Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy_ (Walker) shows that geometry and land acquisition and speculation drove the development of the nation. The importance of simply measuring the land has reinforced for Americans the value of land ownership. Native Americans did not enclose or measure land, and thus they could not convincingly demonstrate (to those who wanted to take it from them) that they owned it. This pattern was true not just in America, but in, for example, South Africa and Australia. Patterns of demarcation even influenced regional character. In the South, the legislatures were dominated by landowners who relied upon local surveyors who did not use chains and theodolites, but instead relied on marked trees and memory. Such a system caused violent struggles, but it also meant that doubts over actual ownership inhibited speculation and transfer of land. In the North, farmers would settle, improve the land, sell, and move to another measured plat; in the south, owners kept the property for generations, and Linklater refers to the effect on southern literature of such patterns of survey and ownership as being good material for future scholarly research. The squares laid out in the 19th century did not help efficient farming, but they helped the financier, who could easily track the value of the squares; settlement was based on speculation. The squares impressed themselves on urban consciousness, too. The beautifully laid out Washington, D.C. with its frequent diagonals was seldom copied, as the grid alone was easier to lay out and to sell segmentally. Circleville, Ohio, was originally laid out as a series of rings and radians, but was quickly converted to a grid once people started residing there. In the latter part of the 19th century, Chief Seattle complained, "We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?" Fairly or not, logically or not, the answer was that marking the land made ownership, and ownership made America. Measuring the land and speculating in real estate might seem an unlikely subject for an interesting book, but this is a surprising and sometimes romantic tale. Linklater's readable history is a valuable commentary on a particular way we became particularly American.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting history
Review: I really enjoyed this book. This is one example of the kind of history that can be informative and yet hold the reader's attention, though I admit it is a subject that has interested me a lot anyway. The book's primary thrust is the history leading to the fact that we do not normally use the metric system in the U. S. I must say that it makes a good case for an idea that I'd never run across before: that this is primarily because the French, in devising the definition of the meter, departed from an idea that many people, including Thomas Jefferson, thought would give the most internationally reproducible standard. Reading this book, it really seems he has his facts right, and his argument is convincing. I found that the book clarified a number of points that I have wondered about. One negative thing is that his appendix in the end has some (probably typographical) errors: one table shows 101, 102, etc. for what slould really be 10 with exponents 1, 2, etc.) and in several other tables, "grains" becomes "gains."
Rating:
Summary: Makes for fascinating reading
Review: In Measuring America, Andro Linklater exposes one of the untold stories in American history: how the land survey which spread across the country created a structure of land ownership unique in history, linking the wild frontier to the settlers who would tame it. Linklater's story of how the American Customary System of measurement came to be founded during this effort makes for fascinating reading.
Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating history
Review: In this fascinating book, author Andro Linklater examines how the measuring of land developed, and how the thought-forms that it gave rise to shaped the subsequent development of the United States. You see, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the English aristocracy began enclosing their land, and changing how it was used. As such, it became necessary to measure the land accurately for the owner. And when England began to plant colonies in the New World, these colonists began to see the land not as something belonging to the Crown or the community, but as individual kingdoms, where the owner was sovereign. This gave rise to a uniquely American way of looking at land and the individual. I don't doubt that the summary above will suggest that this book is a dull and boring analysis of an unimportant historical detail, but this is hardly the case. Mr. Linklater succeeds is writing a fascinating history, that also makes a very persuasive case for his view of history. Though it is a bit long, and begins to drag towards the end, I did enjoy reading this book, and highly recommend it. In particular, I was astonished to read about the development of the metric system, how the United States was nearly the first country to implement it (after France, of course), and what happened.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard Read in Places But Interesting Topic
Review: It is facsinating, especially in this time of overdevelopment in our country to get such a book. A chapter at the end about surveying, our large Great Plains farms and overdevelopment and surveying would have been interesting. Some chapters were very readable. Others, I found hard going.
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Summary: Americas Imaculate Grid Explained
Review: It's an interesting topic. And anyone who has flown over the country's midsection can't doubt the importance of land surveys and, more important, the "grid" in shaping Americans' concept of the land. But...what about Philadelphia? Philadelphia was laid out in 1682 with a pattern of north-south/east-west streets that created equal-sized blocks that had the democratizing effect that Linklater attributes to the 1785 survey. It seems strange to me that Linklater omitted this important precedent.
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Summary: What about Philadelphia?
Review: It's an interesting topic. And anyone who has flown over the country's midsection can't doubt the importance of land surveys and, more important, the "grid" in shaping Americans' concept of the land. But...what about Philadelphia? Philadelphia was laid out in 1682 with a pattern of north-south/east-west streets that created equal-sized blocks that had the democratizing effect that Linklater attributes to the 1785 survey. It seems strange to me that Linklater omitted this important precedent.
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Summary: Jefferson, the philosopher, does his thing
Review: Linklater's "Measuring America," presents the lively story of surveying from the earliest days. He makes is clear that surveying was fundamental to the British concept of land as property. At the time ownership of land was foreign in most of Europe and especially to Native Americans (and the natives of other lands settled by the British including Australia and New Zealand). The author argues that the corollary, that he who did not fence the land did not own it, led directly to displacement of the natives in lands settled by the British. Surveying was also fundamental to the sale of land and to westward expansion of the nation. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner is usually credited with the idea that westward expansion was a critical aspect. Linklater points out that land was one of the few assets the young nation possessed after the Revolutionary War. Taxes and tariffs were unpopular, so selling land was a politically favored way to pay off the war debt. In addition, land speculation was a major activity for many prominent citizens. A key player in all of this was Thomas Jefferson. His father had been a surveyor in colonial Virginia. As governor of Virginia, he agreed to cede that state's western land claims to the Federal government if other states would do likewise. In an age when measures of all sorts (length, weight, and volume) lacked standards and differed in every region, Jefferson participated in scientific discussions that proposed a system of decimalized measures. He was Minister to France when the metric system was developed, knew the principles behind it, and may have engaged in the debate that led to its development. He succeeded in proposing the dollar and decimalized money. He failed in decimalized measures for the US. He proposed that the lands of the Northwest territory should be surveyed in squares. In the legislation that followed, Congress established the procedures by which all other states were admitted. Surveying in squares was a novel concept. It created land masses that were easily identified and was preferable to the alternative metes and bounds system. Under metes and bounds plots of land were marked out based on natural boundaries like streams or ridge lines and landmarks. This system worked well for the first lands marked off, but the last lands marked often had irregular, unusual shapes. These were difficult to survey. The landmarks could be poorly identified and sometimes uncertain. That meant lawsuits over land ownership were more numerous. The system was preferred where aristocracy prevailed and aristocrats had the resources to win the lawsuits. Others were reluctant to buy or sell land because title and boundaries were uncertain. The author believes this system hindered economic development in the South. Surveying in a wilderness caused numerous problems. It was necessary to walk the boundaries of the squares through that wilderness. That required chopping trees and brush and negotiating natural barriers like swamps, mountains and waterways. It was difficult work and surveyors were well paid. In a sense, they were the first pioneers and were required to record key assets such as streams, forests, and salt licks. They are credited with identifying the best lands-sometimes for the benefit of land speculators. They are credited with finding the large iron deposits in northern Michigan, which played havoc with their magnetic compasses. The surveyors chain, known as Gunter's chain, was invented in the early 1600s. It was composed of 100 links for a total length of 66 ft. This measure is imprinted across the land in numerous measures. In addition to the squares, many towns were laid out with 99 ft boulevard widths. Lot dimensions were selected to easily accommodate Gunter's chain. It is also well suited to measuring acres. An acre was originally the land area a single man could work in a day with a team of oxen. It consists of 40 dayworks. A daywork, a space 2 rods by 2 rods (33 ft by 33 ft), is the area a man can work without animals in a day. Linklater tells the full story of surveying. The story of land development, the story of surveying errors and corrections, and the establishment of the meridian baselines are described. He tells the history of land measurement in Europe and the history of measures including the metric system. The book is well done. It's a great read. Copious references to land development and surveying are included.
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