Calculating People

Patricia Cline Cohen is Professor of History at the University of California at Santa Barbara and author of The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of aProstitute in 19th Century New York (1998).

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Numeracy in Seventeenth-Century England2. Colonial Counting3. Patterns and Providence4. Republican Arithmetic5. Statistics and the State6. The Census of 1840 Conclusion Notes Index

"[An] exceptionally well-crafted book...Illuminating and richly detailed." -- Paul Starr, The New Republic"An important volume...This thoughtful, original, and felicitous book deserves a broad audience." -- Michael Kammen, Journal of American History"A classic study...This elegant cultural history of how numbers became America's most powerful signs, both for reasoning and persuasion, is crucial for understanding the transformation of 19th-century America." -- Richard D. Brown, University of Connecticut