Customer Reviews

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

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The subtitle of this highly readable book is a bit purple -- "How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy" -- but what the author has to say makes a good case. It's also an amazingly action-packed adventure story. Any genealogist learns early the practical ins and outs of frontier settlement and the titles, grants, and other documents that land claims inevitably produce. In this country, there are two distinct methods of recording those claims: "metes and bounds" in the original colonies and some of their western lands (such as Kentucky) and in Texas, which describe the boundaries of one's land in terms of the points at which it adjoins or "meets" a neighbor's land, and the rectangular survey system developed for use in the public land states created from the nation's later territorial acquisitions. The latter is far more rational and allows a claim to be filed based on geographical location without having actually set foot on the land -- but it also requires preliminary measurement by a party of government surveyors. Linklater lays out in much detail, and with colorful anecdotes, how the first surveys were decided upon and carried out (more or less) in the Northwest Territory, and later in the Plains states and the West. He describes how, thanks to the efforts of Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. nearly adopted a rational metric system early in its history (which in France and Prussia was an instrument of centralized government policy), and how that goal was waylaid by clinging to Edmund Gunter's English chain/furlong system, which had the virtue of being easily understood by semi-literate surveyors with minimal mathematical skills. He relates the part played by rapacious land speculators (most of them members of the old aristocracy of New York, Massachusetts, and the Carolina low country), by frontier town-builders enamored of rectangular blocks (and why Manhattan has narrow, skimpy blocks compared to Philadelphia or Chicago), and how the railroads used the land-survey system to open up the continent while amassing enormous wealth. Though this volume is intended for the popular market, it also includes endnotes and a good bibliography.

I really enjoyed this book. This is one example of the kind of history that can be informative and yet hold the reader's attention, though I admit it is a subject that has interested me a lot anyway.

The book's primary thrust is the history leading to the fact that we do not normally use the metric system in the U. S. I must say that it makes a good case for an idea that I'd never run across before: that this is primarily because the French, in devising the definition of the meter, departed from an idea that many people, including Thomas Jefferson, thought would give the most internationally reproducible standard. Reading this book, it really seems he has his facts right, and his argument is convincing.

I found that the book clarified a number of points that I have wondered about.

One negative thing is that his appendix in the end has some (probably typographical) errors: one table shows 101, 102, etc. for what slould really be 10 with exponents 1, 2, etc.) and in several other tables, "grains" becomes "gains."

This book tells an important chapter of America's early history; specifically how the land west of the original 13 colonies was measured, carved up, and sold off. Involved in this process was the contest between those who favored a decimal system for America's weights and measures and those who favored the non-decimal English system. The former was pushed by Thomas Jefferson as more systematic, efficient, and highly organized. Unfortunately, the French Revolution and its ensuing systemic, efficient and highly organized executions helped to kill this and many other French-inspired ideas. Instead, the traditional method of feet and inches took hold.

The book describes the mapping of the other states besides the original 13 and how this process showed a precision and efficiency that was unique to America. A look at the US map shows that the original 13 states have highly irregular borders. But as one looks west, state borders become straighter, cleaner, and smoother. Essentially, the original 13 states had their border decided after people moved in and created towns, farms, and villages. This process was reversed to various degrees in the other states, where borders were layed out first to maximize the ease by which the land could be subdivided for sale. Such a process helped America spread westward with ease, speed, and minimal legal hassles and conflicts between neighbors.

The book covers all the major figures involved in this process, from Presidents and other government officials making the decisions, to the cartographers in the wild who drew out the lines in the forests, praries, and fields. All told, this is a good book to read with a text easy enough for most high school students. It should be required reading in high school history classes.

This is a good read, but actually seems to be two books. I'm not sure the other reviewers have really gotten that point across.

In one book, the author traces how land was parceled out, surveyed, sold, and settled as the US moved west. It's fascinating stuff, and probably has more do with our history than the obvious and sometimes boring schoolbook emphasis on treaties, battles, and political leaders.

The overall picture it paints is one of a huge land grab, with speculation playing a very large role. It reminds us that the current economic situation we find ourselves in has roots that go back far, and that our politicians (starting with Washington, Jefferson, et al.) have been very closely involved every step of the way.

In the other book, the author talks about measurement systems. Yes, the two do have some interplay, but the author seems to get quite carried away with the latter, devoting large chunks to the metric system, weights, and other topics that really have very little to do with the overall theme. If you find that interesting, great. If not, just skip over it, like I did.

The author is an excellent writer, by the way. He seems to make even the most boring stuff interesting. There did seem to be a little too much of a reliance on individual characters though. He also had some very interesting theories - differences in measurement in the North and South, and between the British and French and Spanish - but I do wish some of these had been developed more.

This book draws together a broad range of history concerning measures, measurements and the people who make them. Then it tells the story of how these interactions have affected American history, politics, geography, home ownership and many other things.

Did you every wonder why the US didn't adopt the metric system when it was first proposed by France? Well (like many other things) the story I was taught in school was short, dull and misleading.

The real story is full of action and adventure.

The action involves a secret last meeting of Louis XVI with his scientific advisors the night he attempted escape, a man with a passion for collecting rare flowers, a hurricane in the Caribbean, a treacherous French governor, pirates, an Indian massacre of US Army troops on the frontier, and the struggles between Thomas Jefferson and real estate speculators!

This book will probably interest people already curious about the subject but will be a harder sell to the average educated reader perusing library shelves and on-line catalogs for an appealing general history.

Yet Measuring America is indeed a good general history, decently (if discursively) written, with good arguments made throughout. (David McCullough blurbs that he "was caught up from the first page.") Perhaps the subtitle's claim that land surveys "fulfilled the promise of democracy" is a bit over the top, but Linklater does correctly associate increased private ownership of real estate with the rise of democracy and the dramatic increase in population of the Thirteen Colonies that allowed them to outstrip New France and New Spain. Linklater also shares some clever thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of farms and city blocks turned into squares and rectangles.

Actually, Measuring America deals as much with weights and smaller linear measures as with the rectangular survey that turned the Midwest into grids stretching to the horizon from twenty thousand feet. Some of the most interesting chapters treat the possible window of opportunity during the early national years that might have permitted the United States to adopt a decimal measuring system superior to metric, which then might have taken the place of the latter as an international standard.

This is that type of book that answers the question--"I wonder why so many cities are one a grid"-or variations there upon.
Author Linklater provides fascinating historical insight and overview into the mapping of America. This is an enjoyable
book with one minor--very minor--mistake. In East Liverpool, it's Ohio Route 39, not 38, that leads one to the roadside
markers for the "Point of Beginning" I visited this location last Wednesday, after work. Linklater provides the perfect description of that site, and the surveyors' task.

Fascinating reading on many levels. Moving from the overcrowded East Coast to the wide open West got me interested in the land survey in the first place, but I was surprised and intrigued by the presentation of the concept of land ownership and the historical significance of measuring and mapping. The book is very readable, full of interesting facts and jumping off points for further study. I highly recommend it.

Very good introduction to the shaping of America, literally and figuratively. Good basic explanations of surveying in the 19th century with its ramifications for politics and the development of the U.S.

"Measuring America" follows the cultural and economic impact that land surveys had on the development of the United States, as it traces 3 centuries of the parceling out of land in North America, from colonial days, through the great westward expansion, and into the 20th century. Author Andro Linklater simultaneously follows the origins of the competition between decimal (metric) and Customary units of weights and measures in the US and Europe that led ultimately to the confusing situation we have today, as the US uses both systems. The story begins in Tudor England, where the concept of measuring off and enclosing land began. That concept would be the foundation of the Jeffersonian vision of America as well as the source of much strife with the indigenous populations of North America.

The large part of the book is spent on the two centuries of mammoth land surveying projects that allowed the United States and its new 19th century land acquisitions to be divided into squares and sold. Thomas Jefferson viewed it as the framework on which the nation's character would be built: a nation of romanticized yeoman farmers who owned and worked their own land. Others saw the myriad square lots as opportunity for land speculation, and so the United States was the first to fully commodify land. While most of the book focuses on surveying and selling the Northwest Territory, Louisiana Purchase, and lands won from Mexico in 1848, the author also comments on the gridiron pattern of American cities, which also had its origins in Jefferson's squares.

I found the ideas behind the enclosure and commodification more compelling than the actual surveying, though the size of the surveying projects is impressive. The ideas evolve from the first instance of enclosing and selling land by King Henry VIII, through the creation of modern concepts of measure by Elizabeth I, to the colonies of North America, where idealism and ambition that made each man king of his own little plot became one of the most enduring values in America. I wish the author had done more analysis of the change in worldview brought on by the enclosure and ownership of land. The book is dense, due to all the talk of measures, property, and debates over their merits. I've read a lot of 17th-19th century history of the US, Britain, and France, and I found some of the tangential references in the book to be misleading, but its focus is an interesting and important facet of American history.