The Triumph of Numbers : How Counting Shaped Modern Life
Overview
The great historian of science I. B. Cohen explores how numbers have come to assume a leading role in science, in the operations and structure of government, in marketing, and in many other aspects of daily life. Consulting and collecting numbers has been a feature of human affairs since antiquity--taxes, head counts for military service--but not until the Scientific Revolution in the twelfth century did social numbers such as births, deaths, and marriages begin to be analyzed. Cohen shines a new light on familiar figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Dickens; and he reveals Florence Nightingale to be a passionate statistician. Cohen has left us with an engaging and accessible history of numbers, an appreciation of the essential nature of statistics.
Customers Also Bought
Details
- ISBN-13: 9780393328707
- ISBN-10: 0393328708
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
- Publish Date: July 2006
- Dimensions: 8.24 x 5.64 x 0.58 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.44 pounds
- Page Count: 212
Related Categories
