The Sum of the People: How the Census Has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age

by Andrew Whitby

Overview

This fascinating three-thousand-year history of the census traces the making of the modern survey and explores its political power in the age of big data and surveillance.

In April 2020, the United States will embark on what has been called "the largest peacetime mobilization in American history": the decennial population census. It is part of a tradition of counting people that goes back at least three millennia and now spans the globe.

In The Sum of the People, data scientist Andrew Whitby traces the remarkable history of the census, from ancient China and the Roman Empire, through revolutionary America and Nazi-occupied Europe, to the steps of the Supreme Court. Marvels of democracy, instruments of exclusion, and, at worst, tools of tyranny and genocide, censuses have always profoundly shaped the societies we've built. Today, as we struggle to resist the creep of mass surveillance, the traditional census — direct and transparent — may offer the seeds of an alternative.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541619340
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/31/2020
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	401,998
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Andrew Whitby is an economist and data scientist with a PhD in econometrics from the University of Oxford. Most recently, he worked in the development data group of the World Bank, where he was coeditor of the Atlas of the Sustainable Development Goals. He lives in Brooklyn.

Table of Contents

Prologue Where Counting Really Counts 1

Chapter 1 The Book Of Numbers 23

Chapter 2 Political Arithmetic 55

Chapter 3 A Punch Photograph 95

Chapter 4 Paper People 131

Chapter 5 R World Census 175

Chapter 6 The Uncounted 217

Chapter 7 The Transparent Citizen 254

Acknowledgments 273

Notes 275

Index 337

Editorial Reviews

03/02/2020

Data scientist Whitby debuts with a timely yet somewhat ponderous history of population counting, ahead of the 2020 census. He traces the practice as far back as the first millennium BCE, when the king of a nomadic warrior tribe in Central Asia asked each of his people to bring him an arrowhead, and notes that the earliest Chinese census may have been connected to efforts to divert the Yellow River into irrigation channels. In 1086 CE, William the Conqueror became one of the first European rulers to create an enumeration process; it included people as well as cows, mills, and plough teams. Despite religious doctrine (some interpreted the Book of Exodus as implying that population counting was “innately sinful”) and fears of forced military conscription, decennial census taking became an established practice by the mid-19th century. Whitby explores the role of the census in Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews and in the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. He also engages in thorough and highly technical discussions of statistical methods. General readers may find the level of detail dizzying, but Whitby makes a persuasive case that studying the history of the census can help make the practice more beneficial. Those with a deep interest in the subject will find this comprehensive account rewarding. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"When we hear census, we think of numbers and statistics. But Andrew Whitby shows that the history of the census is an amazingly fascinating and illuminating story, and in The Sum of the People, he tells that story eloquently and persuasively. A real page-turner!"—Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, coauthor of Big Data

"In The Sum of the People, Andrew Whitby tells a gripping tale of humanity, civilization, and power. If you never imagined that a book about the census and the statisticians who conduct it could be a page-turner, think again. At a time when the need for the census is being challenged amid a tide of online big data, this book is also a deeply thought-provoking read."—Diane Coyle, author of GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History and Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge


"Humans spend much effort counting themselves. Always have, always will. Why? To control, conscript, and tax; but, then, also to hold accountable the powerful people who control, conscript, and tax. Andrew Whitby, alert to this duality, instructs and entertains as he brilliantly travels across the census landscape. Literally, a tour de force."—Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Columbia University, and former director of the US Census Bureau


"This is a wonderful book. The history of the census may not at first appear to be a particularly hot topic, but Andrew Whitby's vigorous style, fine story-telling, and detailed knowledge combine to form a riveting narrative. Who would have thought that simply counting people could be such a deeply contested issue?"—David Spiegelhalter, author of The Art of Statistics

From the Publisher

03/01/2020

Economist and data scientist Whitby presents a timely and eye-opening look at the 3,000-year history of census taking from around the globe, how this task can tell the story of the world's people, and where the census might be headed in the future. The year 2020 marks the decennial census that many nations will conduct, including the United States. To show how the census has come to be, and how it developed significant political and economic impact, Whitby shares its history. This includes how the census was once used as a "mechanism for state formation and control" to satisfy the needs of despots, but also utilized by the powerless as a way for minority self-expression and a canvas for protest. It has also been used as a tactic for nation-building and to assert territorial claim. Whitby asserts that the census as we know it today is in jeopardy due to the variety of other methods, including ubiquitous surveillance practices, that have been deployed to identify each citizen. VERDICT An important, accessible, and engaging book that will find a varied audience from readers of political science, history, economics, and national security.—David Miller, Farmville P.L., NC

Library Journal

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