WHATEVER HAPPENED TO METRIC SYSTEMby john Bemelmans Marciano

Değerli Yayıncılarımız; 

Sizlerle temsilcisi bulunduğum Jill Grinberg Literary Management'ın listelerinden önümüzdeki hafta yayınlanacak yetişkinlere yönelik kurgusal olmayan bir kitaptan, John Bemelmans Marciano'nun kaleme aldığı WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE METRIC SYSTEM'den söz etmek isterim. ANONYPONYMOUS ve TOPONYMITY adlı eserleriyle New York Times bestseller yazarlarından John Bemelmans Marciano , çeyrek ve ondalıklarla aynı miktarda, bir insanlık dramını, büyük mucitler, vizyoner başkanlar, obsesif aktivistler ve bilimi seven teknokratlarla dolu bir hikayeyi anlatıyor. Amerikan standart ölçüm sistemi ezoterik ve tutarsız standardlarıyla benzersiz tuhaflıkta bir sistem.Öyleyse Amerikalılar neden hala bu sistemi kullanıyor? Bu sorunun cevabı için Fransa'ya bakmak gerekir. Marciano, ölçüm sistemlerinin kökenini anlatırken, Avrupa çapındaki standartdaki bir dizi değişimden,  Amerikan'ın 13 kolonisinden, Fransız Devrimi sonrasında, Fransa'daki ölçüm sisteminin oluşmasıyla sonuçlanan akıl ve durum kombinasyonundan ve Amerika'nın geleneksel sisteme sadakatle bağlılığından söz ediyor.

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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.

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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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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

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—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.​

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​ohn Bemelmans Marciano tells an unexpectedly rich tale spanning three centuries, the American and French revolutions, and the emergence of modern Europe. How could the United States be the first large nation to decimalize currency and almost nothing else? The continued use of the foot, the gallon, the pound, and the bushel, in spite of practice in the rest of the world, and in spite of the w​ishes of the nation's founding fathers and subsequent generations of leaders, sheds new light on American exceptionalism. A great read."

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​Donal O'Shea, author of THE POINCARE CONJECTURE

​"Engagingly tells the tragicomic story of how two hundred years ago the United States led the world in adopting a decimal currency, but now lags behind the world in adopting decimal weights and measures, and how many Americans are proud of this stubbornness."

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​John Horton Conway, author of ON NUMBERS AND GAMES

​"In this clever and easy-to-read history, John Marciano offers a convincing explanation of why America is out of step...Rich in riveting stories, this is an intriguing and informative book."

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 ​John Ferlin, author of JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation​

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ohn Bemelmans Marciano is the author and illustrator of many books, including the distinctive reference titles Anonyponymous and Toponymity, as well as the children’s books Madeline at the White House (a New York Times bestseller), Madeline and the Cats of Rome, and Harold’s Tail. A word and math aficionado, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife, daughter, and two cats.