Whatever Happened to the Metric System?

June 2, 2014
Author and illustrator Marciano (The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield) reconsiders 200 years of history against the backdrop of a struggle to create a uniform system of measurement for the world. He addresses the origins of multiple forms of money, wet and dry measures, and figures for weight and distance, offering lively anecdotes about such problems as paying taxes in bushels of grain when the tax collector controls the size of a bushel. In that instance, what seemed an arcane issue resulted in the French Revolution, and that break from the ancien régime provided the opportunity to reconstitute all units of measurement, down to the hours in the day—though opposition arose as to the size of a meter, gram, and liter. From the founding of the U.S., there was a movement to go metric, but it was doomed by political and commercial resistance; the U.S. remains, alongside Liberia and Myanmar, one of only three nations in the world to use a different system. Readers will see a different side of metric enthusiasts—including Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson—as Marciano uncovers the relationship between metric system advocates and social reform movements. Marciano writes with humor and a keen eye, and his fascinating tales reveal how extensively measurement has affected history.

June 15, 2014
Marciano, best known as an illustrator and author of popular children's books (Madeline at the White House, 2011, etc.), delves into the political ramifications of the American and French revolutions on the adoption of the metric system.The author begins with Thomas Jefferson, who had just witnessed the approval of his proposal to replace British currency with an American national currency based upon a decimal version of the Spanish dollar. "Jefferson wanted to take the radical step of dividing the coin by tenths, hundredths, and thousandths-decimal fractions," writes Marciano. "It was a thing no other nation in the world had ever entirely achieved, not with coins or any other measure." Tasked by Congress to tackle the broader subject of establishing a uniform system of weights and measures, Jefferson presented one but urged that it not be accepted until it was clear what would be decided in France, where leaders were discussing similar issues. Marciano explains how many different political and cultural issues converged in the question of measurement. In America, the need for a uniform national coinage was obvious, but weights and measures were fairly uniform throughout the former colonies. Not so in France, which employed as many as "250,000 different measures." The revolutionary demand for uniform taxation and the abolition of the special privileges of the three estates (aristocracy, clergy and king) necessitated a comprehensive overhaul of measurements. The French Revolution gave birth to the metric system as we know it today, but Jefferson's hope that America and France would lead the world in jointly adopting a new universal standard of measurement has yet to be realized. However, this is not a problem. "[W]e now live in an age where the villain has become uniformity," writes Marciano; with the advent of the digital age, measurements are now easily convertible.A lively perspective on globalism as it relates to currency and systems of measurement.

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August 1, 2014

American and European history is related through the pressures of measurement systems and their promoters and detractors. Marciano, the author of several reference titles (Anonyponymous; Toponymity) as well as books in the children's series Madeline, begun by his grandfather, here recounts the history of metrology--the science of measurement--to help readers understand why the United States is out of step with most of the world. This rather cheeky account covers key events in its evolution as well as the people who have tried to standardize, or keep from standardizing, the system over the past 400 years. The political drama and daily impact of the topic have divided cultures, religions, governments, politicians, philosophers, scientists, and academics in ways not commonly known. Marciano's often irreverent descriptions of many of the players in the effort to establish systems for distance, length, volume, weight, and temperature is both interesting and troubling. It seems that the author tries to engage readers by using recent North American vernacular and slang to describe people, behavior, and events from the sometimes distant past. The heavy application of savant instead of specific persons, disciplines, or areas of expertise may confuse readers who are not familiar with this use. VERDICT While this exciting, well-researched work is diminished somewhat by the dialect used to discuss its topic, it will still be a satisfying addition to public and academic libraries.--Linda Loos Scarth, Cedar Rapids, IA

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