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The Tyranny of Numbers: Mismeasurement and Misrule (Aei Studies, 528)
by Nicholas Eberstadt
Product Group: Book
Publisher: American Enterprise Institute Press (1995-06)
ISBN: 0844737631
EAN: 9780844737638
Dewy Decimal #: 300.72
Hardcover: 327 pages
SKU: BX008-060822014
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: Clean and shiny. Light dustcover wear, not pricecut. Pgs crisp, clean, tight, unmarked. No remainder mark.
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Customer Reviews
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Very interesting points, but very bloated/ dense, difficult to read prose
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-05-29
There are other books that have highlighted statistical illusions and talked about how the numbers of things didn't add up ("Freakonomics" comes immediately to mind) but did a better job of keeping the reader interested.
It is understandable that the author wanted to give a thorough treatment of certain topics (and the book is chock-full of graphs and tables that analyze every variable in every way possible), but this was just drinking water through a firehose.
Particularly interesting was his treatment of poverty statistics (since EVERYONE seems to have an opinion about what is the appropriate government solution to poverty) that pointed out that who is poor depends on whether you measure income or consumption. (So, a person who cuts his own hair with a pair of $10 clippers consumes the exact same amount of services as a person who goes to the barbershop once every two weeks and pays a barber $15 each time to cut his hair-- independent of their income.)
Sadly, a book like this will not appeal to people who listen to those who make a living out of exposition of this or that crisis (e.g., Noam Chomsky) because the cost of working your way through such a book like this is higher than that of listening to the babbling of some fearmonger or another.
Well worth a secondhand purchase price.
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