The Sum of the People
How the Census Has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age
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The Sum of the People
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Lu par :
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David Piggott
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De :
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Andrew Whitby
À propos de cette écoute
This fascinating 3,000-year history of the census traces the making of the modern survey and explores its political power in the age of big data and surveillance.
In April 2020, the United States will embark on what has been called "the largest peacetime mobilization in American history": the decennial population census. It is part of a tradition of counting people that goes back at least three millennia and now spans the globe.
In The Sum of the People, data scientist Andrew Whitby traces the remarkable history of the census, from ancient China and the Roman Empire, through revolutionary America and Nazi-occupied Europe, to the steps of the Supreme Court. Marvels of democracy, instruments of exclusion, and, at worst, tools of tyranny and genocide, censuses have always profoundly shaped the societies we've built. Today, as we struggle to resist the creep of mass surveillance, the traditional census - direct and transparent - may offer the seeds of an alternative.
©2020 Andrew Whitby (P)2020 Basic Books
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Commentaires
"Humans spend much effort counting themselves. Always have, always will. Why? To control, conscript, and tax; but, then, also to hold accountable the powerful people who control, conscript, and tax. Andrew Whitby, alert to this duality, instructs and entertains as he brilliantly travels across the census landscape. Literally, a tour de force." (Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Columbia University, and former director of the US Census Bureau)
"When we hear census, we think of numbers and statistics. But Andrew Whitby shows that the history of the census is an amazingly fascinating and illuminating story, and in The Sum of the People, he tells that story eloquently and persuasively. A real page-turner!" (Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, coauthor of Big Data)
"In The Sum of the People, Andrew Whitby tells a gripping tale of humanity, civilization, and power. If you never imagined that a book about the census and the statisticians who conduct it could be a page-turner, think again. At a time when the need for the census is being challenged amid a tide of online big data, this book is also a deeply thought-provoking read." (Diane Coyle, author of GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History and Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge)
Ce que les auditeurs disent de The Sum of the People
Moyenne des évaluations utilisateurs. Seuls les utilisateurs ayant écouté le titre peuvent laisser une évaluation.Commentaires - Veuillez sélectionner les onglets ci-dessous pour changer la provenance des commentaires.
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Global1 out of 5 stars
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Interprétation1 out of 5 stars
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Histoire1 out of 5 stars
- Pierre Gauthier
- 10/05/2020
A Disappointing Hodge Podge!
In this longish work, the author, a statistician, endeavours to present the role that censuses have played in world history. The topic is highly original but, sadly, the book’s woeful lack of organization greatly reduces its impact. From one sentence to the next, the reader is tossed from South Africa to Australia to the United States, from the 19th century to the 18th to the 20
th. There appears to be no overall logic to the book, whether chronological, topical or geographical.
Writing is at times deficient, with sentences such as “he was not yet possessed of his characteristic yellow suit”. Also, the author occasionally throws in superfluous and misfit details pertaining to his research, such as the appearance of the room where he was waiting to interview one of his sources.
In terms of contents, much concern is expressed regarding undercounting but the potential issue of overcounting, and of respondents _ or authorities _ lying or exaggerating is barely mentioned.
In the audio version, sound editing is strangely very crude, and some words have been corrected using what appears to be a different microphone. At times, the narrator’s tempo is such that he does not seem to understand what he is saying. Worse, his enunciation is way under par and, for instance, “delegate” comes out more like “delicate” and “staple” like “stable”.
Some may think that this work was put together too quickly, to surf on the controversy of the citizenship question being introduced in the next US census.
Whatever the case may be, potential buyers may find it worthwhile to wait for a (potential) revised, reorganized and synthetized second edition.
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