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Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life / Tamara Plakins Thornton.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Thornton, Tamara Plakins, 1957- author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Industrial organization--United States--History.
- Industrial organization.
- Mathematicians--United States--Biography.
- Mathematicians.
- Astronomers--United States--Biography.
- Astronomers.
- Bowditch, Nathaniel, 1773-1838.
- Genre:
- Electronic books.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (417 p.)
- Manufacture:
- Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2016
- Place of Publication:
- Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2016]
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- "Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), a mathematician, astronomer, and insurance executive--and a major agent of Enlightenment-era change ... took his personal work habits and blended them with the certainty and predictability of the science that he studied, creating something completely new for his time: the impersonal bureaucracy. Enthralled with the precision and certainty of numbers and the unerring regularity of the physical universe, Bowditch shaped some of New England's most powerful institutions, from financial corporations to Harvard College, into clockwork mechanisms. He ran his insurance company with rule-bound regularity, implementing systematic and novel paperwork procedures, methodical bookkeeping practices, and standardized filing systems, helping to usher in a new era of intellectual history"-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- Cover; Contents; Acknowledgments; INTRODUCTION; ONE: Born into Salem; TWO: Parts Unknown; THREE: The Navigator; FOUR: Gentleman Actuary; FIVE: Celestial Events; SIX: The Prudent Man; SEVEN: The Clockwork Corporation; EIGHT: Harvard and Other Imperfect Mechanisms; NINE: Apogee; TEN: Final Reckonings; Notes; Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y; Z
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 9798890849632
- 9781469626949
- 1469626942
- 9781469628110
- 1469628112
- OCLC:
- 939597862
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