The epic story of how the gigantic land of America acquired its unique shape across 3000 miles of territory, and how the largest land survey in history paved the way both for a colossal sale of property and for the embedding of democracy and the spirit of independence in the psyche of Americans. The sheer scale of it makes the measuring of America extraordinary. Beginning in 1785, it became the largest land survey in history stretching from the Ohio river to the Pacific coast and from Lake Erie to the Mexican border. It prepared the ground for the sale of almost two billion acres, and shaped landscapes and cities across the US more drastically than any event since the last ice age. Before the survey could begin, there had to be agreement about what kind of measurement should be used. What made the 18th-century debate so critical was the revolution taking place in Western thought as objective, scientific reasoning challenged the traditional, subjective view of the world. A battle began between those (like the British) supporting a centuries-old organic form of measurement (ounces and pounds, yards and acres) and the modernizers, like Thomas Jefferson, who backed a system based on scientific observation. The effects of the measuring of America on the landscape and people (native and immigrant) were huge and long-lasting.

Measuring America

History

Andro Linklater

Americas

Penguin Group USA

Wild People

Politics & Social Sciences

Anthropology

ABACUS +

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.
Measuring America 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.

Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History

Penguin Publishing Group

The Code of Love: A True Story

Biographies & Memoirs

PHOENIX MASS MARKET P/BK

The United States had to pay for the war that won its freedom by selling land. It first had to be measured and mapped. Here is the fascinating story of how our unique system of weights and measures was achieved.

Measuring America: How An Untamed Wilderness Shaped The United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy

Thorndike Press

"This expertly written and eminently enjoyable chronicle is highly recommended for history and history of science collections." -Library Journal "Make room on the library shelf for the never-before-told saga of the survey that converted the vast wilderness west of the Ohio River into a commodity marked out for government sale." -Booklist, Starred Review How we ultimately gained the American Customary System-the last traditional system in the world-and how Gunter's chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast is both an exciting human and intellectual drama and one of the great untold stories in American history. Sagely argued and beautifully written, Measuring America offers readers nothing less than the opportunity to see America's history-and our democracy-in a brilliant new light.

Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped by the Greatest Land Sale in History

Tantor Audio

Barely two centuries ago, most of the world's productive land still belonged either communally to traditional societies or to the higher powers of monarch or church. But that pattern, and the ways of life that went with it, were consigned to history as a result of the most creative - and, at the same time, destructive - cultural force in the modern era: the idea of individual, exclusive ownership of land. This notion laid waste to traditional communal civilisations, displacing entire peoples from their homelands, and brought into being a unique concept of individual freedom and a distinct form of representative government and democratic institutions. Other great civilizations, in Russia, China, and the Islamic world, evolved very different structures of land ownership, and thus very different forms of government and social responsibility. The seventeenth-century English surveyor William Petty was the first man to recognise the connection between private property and free-market capitalism; the American radical Wolf Ladejinsky redistributed land in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea after the Second World War to make possible the emergence of Asian tiger economies. Through the eyes of these remarkable individuals and many more, including Chinese emperors and German peasants, Andro Linklater here presents the evolution of land ownership to offer a radically new view of mankind's place on the planet.

Owning the Earth: The Transforming History of Land Ownership

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die: The Assassination of a British Prime Minister

Historical Study & Educational Resources

On the afternoon of May 11, 1812, Spencer Perceval, the all-powerful prime minister of Great Britain, was fatally shot at short range in the lobby of Parliament by John Bellingham, a Liverpool businessman. Perceval polarized public opinion: Revered by some and hated by others for his fight against the lucrative slave trade, he domineeringly kept Britain at war against Napoléon and was driving her into war with the United States despite the huge economic drain of each, raising taxes to new heights to finance his decisions. Bellingham was not alone in blaming Perceval and his government for their ruinous policies; indeed, he claimed to have killed Perceval "as a matter of justice," and believed he would not only be exonerated, but also applauded for his action. But he was not to enjoy relief; within a week, granted the briefest of trials that trampled his right to due process, he was hanged. In Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die, Andro Linklater examines the assassination against the dramatic events of the time with the eye and insight of the finest detective.

Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die

Historical

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Andro Linklater. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Andro Linklater