Open AccessThe Sum of the People: How the Census has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age
Author(s) -
Tom Adamich
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
dttp/documents to the people
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 0270-5095
pISSN - 0091-2085
DOI - 10.5860/dttp.v48i3.7420
Subject(s) - census , timeline , narrative , context (archaeology) , genealogy , skepticism , subtitle , history , geography , world history , demography , sociology , ancient history , archaeology , population , literature , art , epistemology , computer science , philosophy , operating system
When I first received a gracious invitation to examine The Sum of the People: How the Census has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical as to author Andrew Whitby’s intent to talk about the census as both a concept and an historical narrative spanning a timeline, as the subtitle indicates, “from the Ancient World to the Modern age.” Would the work be just another brief commentary on our current US 2020 Census, or would it digress into a study of enumeration as a tool used by statisticians to merely count human bodies and their geographic location—lacking a human narrative or historic context?