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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.
Rating: 
Summary: Measuring America
Review: Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy is a book filled with interesting information about how the government needed an accurate way to measure and sell lands west of the Ohio River. The United States' greatest asset was the land west of the Ohio River, but in order to sell this huge territory, it first had to be surveyed... measured and mapped. But before that could be accomplished, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic. In January 1790, George Washington put the establishment of a single system of weights and measures as one of his most urgent priorities... defense and currency were only deemed more important. This book is filled with interesting information about early America and tells a fascinating story of how this unique system was achieved and how it has profoundly shaped our country and its culture for more than two hundred years. This book tells us how the traditional view of the world was being increasingly challanged by objective reasoning. From measuring and mapping land for ownership the story is told. There is human and intellectual drama as cities are laid out in blocks, making for a grid pattern. Weights and measures were being standardized making for better and fairer commerce. All leading to the ultimately gained American Customary System... the last traditional system in the world. I found the book to be very readable and highly informative. It is well-written and gives the reader a broad understandng for why weights and measures were important... for without them the United States wouldn't exist.
Rating:
Summary: Measuring America
Review: Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy is a book filled with interesting information about how the government needed an accurate way to measure and sell lands west of the Ohio River. The United States' greatest asset was the land west of the Ohio River, but in order to sell this huge territory, it first had to be surveyed... measured and mapped. But before that could be accomplished, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic. In January 1790, George Washington put the establishment of a single system of weights and measures as one of his most urgent priorities... defense and currency were only deemed more important. This book is filled with interesting information about early America and tells a fascinating story of how this unique system was achieved and how it has profoundly shaped our country and its culture for more than two hundred years. This book tells us how the traditional view of the world was being increasingly challanged by objective reasoning. From measuring and mapping land for ownership the story is told. There is human and intellectual drama as cities are laid out in blocks, making for a grid pattern. Weights and measures were being standardized making for better and fairer commerce. All leading to the ultimately gained American Customary System... the last traditional system in the world. I found the book to be very readable and highly informative. It is well-written and gives the reader a broad understandng for why weights and measures were important... for without them the United States wouldn't exist.
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Summary: Much more than a book on surveying
Review: One of the most enjoyable books I have read in my life time. I have a back ground in surveying but it spanned much more than this. It has concisely encapsulated the roots of the American psyche."
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Summary: How Surveyors Defined the Lives of Americans
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: This book "measured up" to my expectations.
Review: There are many reasons to like this book. You'll like it if you're an American history buff. Or a world history buff. Or if you loved Dava Sobel's book "Longitude," but also enjoyed Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything." Or if you've wondered why the United States was the first country to propose a metric system of measurement, but will be the last to adopt one, if it ever does. Or if you ever flew across the country and marvelled at the rectangularity of the midwest, and westward. Or if you grew up in the midwest, where a plot of land is described in terms of range, township, section, chains, and links, and then moved to the east, where no such measurements exist. Or if you just want to know even more about Washington, Jefferson, or the Declaration of Independence. My only criticism of the book is that the black-and-white photographs, especially of maps, did not translate well from hardcover to paperback, where they are generally dim and muddy. Also, the book would have benefitted from the inclusion of diagrams illustrating the relationship of units of land division, such as those mentioned above.
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Summary: This book answers a lot of questions!
Review: This book draws together a broad range of history concerning measures, measurements and the people who make them. Then it tells the story of how these interactions have affected American history, politics, geography, home ownership and many other things. Did you every wonder why the US didn't adopt the metric system when it was first proposed by France? Well (like many other things) the story I was taught in school was short, dull and misleading. The real story is full of action and adventure. The action involves a secret last meeting of Louis XVI with his scientific advisors the night he attempted escape, a man with a passion for collecting rare flowers, a hurricane in the Caribbean, a treacherous French governor, pirates, an Indian massacre of US Army troops on the frontier, and the struggles between Thomas Jefferson and real estate speculators!
Rating: 
Summary: Crying for an Editor
Review: This book has a lot of terrific information including the development of the meter, Jefferson's decimal mearsurement system, the development of surveying and the surveying of America. The author also has some good insights and perspectives on the effect of property ownership to the development of America and American's psyche. Unfortunately, the information is presented in a rather haphazard manner jumping from topic to topic and time period to time period. It definitely should have been organized in a better manner. A good editor could have put it together in amore coherent manner (wouldn't have hurt to restructure several sentences as well). There is a large amount of interesting history and information. If one can force oneself through the work the quality of the information makes it worth it. It will not be an easy road to travel, though.
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Summary: Why are the best books about the US written by Foreigners?
Review: This book was quite interesting for me, a Surveyor, to read. It explored the sociology of measurement, as well as the history of the standardation of measurements in the world, particularly the US. It had a heavy focus on land division, and how the US public lands system was formed. I have recommended it to every Surveyor that I know who is interested in history. If I recall, the author got his inspiration from flying over the mid-west and wondering why everything was squared off.
Rating:
Summary: A pleasant history, but too keen on 'the metric system'
Review: This is a wonderful reminiscing book about the surveying of America, and about battles, both legal and philosophical, over unit systems. It recalls people like Rufus Putnam and Ferdinand Hassler, who helped shape the nation in a profound way. Although I enjoyed it, I had a few minor issues with this book. The first is that Linklater gives the lengths of some units in terms of peculiar other units - for instance, the length of a French toise as 76.734 inches, but he fails to say that these are English inches, whereas the toise is a sensible 72 French inches (and 6 French feet). Similarly, he states that the liter is 1000 cubic cm, which ignores the change the liter underwent in 1964 (it used to be 1000.028 cubic cm -- it isn't an official SI unit). The second issue I had is that Linklater is too fond of the System International, which is arrogantly called by its proponents as THE metric system. Having one world artificial metric system is like having one world artificial language -- handy for trade, but somehow it removes the history and soul of the society. Using broad and perhaps unjust generalizations, I have found that, just as Americans are criticized for not speaking second languages and not appreciating them, Europeans are almost incapable of converting between units. Linklater even mentions this; that people will still use handy colloquial units for easy reference. Lastly, Linklater spends less time on geodesy than I would have liked, and virtually only mentions the French based measurements of Cassini and Picard, thoroughly ignoring Norwood, Snell, and a host of others. Again, despite my petty gripes, this was an enjoyable book.
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