THE TRIUMPH OF NUMBERS: How They Shaped Modern Life
I. Bernard Cohen, . . Norton, $24.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-393-05769-0
Nowadays we think about almost everything in numerical terms, but this engaging essay shows that this mindset developed only gradually. Cohen, a historian of science (the book is published posthumously), explores the colonization of the modern mind by numbers, beginning with the scientific revolution of the 17th century, which formulated the laws of nature as mathematical relationships and applied numerical tests to validate them, and ending with Florence Nightingale's harnessing of her "passion for statistics" to sanitation reform in the 19th century. In between, he chronicles the application of numbers to everything from medicine to demographics and the growing penchant of governments for collecting statistics and using them to guide policy. Quantification spilled over into far-flung fields; one Enlightenment
Reviewed on: 02/07/2005
Genre: Nonfiction
Open Ebook - 224 pages - 978-0-393-25427-3
Paperback - 212 pages - 978-0-393-32870-7