Overview

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; the story itself an exotic blend of narrative history and popular science

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9780007108886

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Reviews

Sturdy prose conveys the remarkable, still inspiring story of the struggle to standardize measurements and to apply them from sea to shining sea. Linklater (The Code of Love, 2001) begins on September 30, 1785, near Liverpool, Ohio, where Thomas Hutchins began surveying the public lands of the US. He was Robinson Crusoe, the author writes, landed in an uncharted wilderness, and his purpose was to measure it so that it could be sold. (We learn later he was also incompetent.) The narrative then circles back to early-16th-century England and to the nascent and novel notion of land ownership. Linklater guides us confidently through Henry VIII's sale of monastery properties to Edmund Gunter's creation of the 22-yard-long surveyors' chain. He provides a primer in surveying and then recounts the long effort to standardize weights and measures. Twenty pages later, we are back in the New World where, by the mid-18th century, land had become a hot commodity. The author notes wryly that the land's previous occupants surrendered their territory after potent doses of treaty and terrorism. Linklater sometimes tells us more than we want to know (e.g., the French systems of measurement), but we learn new stories about Washington and Jefferson (especially the latter), and we struggle along with the early surveyors who crossed swamps, forests, fields, streams, rivers, and purple mountains majestic as they unrolled chains, plotted townships and states, and established the stunning grids still visible today by cross-country air passengers. Linklater emphasizes the connections between measurement and commerce (measure it first, then sell it), and although he sprinkles a few dangling participles on the landscape of his prose, he writes with a firm command of detail and an ample measure of wit: Fanny Trollope, he observes, was a Tory to the tip of her parasol. Immeasurably informative and lots of fun. (30 b&w illustrations, 5 maps, not seen) (Kirkus Reviews)

In Measuring America Linklaker describes the effects that scientific developments in the 17th and 18th centuries had on the process of land acquisition in America. He also recounts the Americans' attempts to develop a regulated set of weights and measures. They believed that this would bring about a fairer, more democratic society: in Europe it was the landowners and aristocrats who owned the 'standard' sets of weights, and they would quite frequently use large weights for buying and small weights for selling. Indeed, practices of this kind had been one of the major grievances that sparked off the French Revolution. It is to Linklaker's credit that his book is more interesting that this premise might suggest. If you are interested in the history of measurement or the early history of the USA then you will find that Linklaker writes clearly and entertainingly, and with an obvious interest in his subject. An unusual but successful work. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Andro Linklater has been a writer for twenty years. He is the author of The Black Watch (with his father, Eric Linklater); Charlotte Despard: A Life; Compton Mackenzie: A Life (winner of the Scottish Arts Council Biography of the Year Award); Wild People: Travels with Borneo’s Head Hunters; and The Code of Love (Weidenfeld 2000).

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