The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600 New Ed Edition

The question of how the world became dominated by Europe has been the topic of several excellent books, among them Crosby's  The Columbian Exchange  and Jared Diamond's  Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies . Crosby seeks an intellecutal (rather than biological) answer to the question here, which is appropriate given that Europe held at best technological and scientific pairity with India, Asia and the Near East. So what happend? What made Europe different that allowed them to eventually conquor (both figuratively and literally) much of the world?Crosby argues that Europe made the crucial move from a "qualifying" view of the world (ie. measuring the world in qualifying terms like 'a pinch') to a "quantifying" view of the world (as in precise measurement - ie. 5 gm.) This transition was slow (the book covers some 250 years) and uneven, and certainly would not have happened without the benefit of the advances made in the East (in terms of Hindu-Arabic numerals, algebra, the concept of "zero" and the like) - but it was the Europeans who began to think in greater abstraction, to measure, quantify and thereby gradually have the tools and wherewithal to explore and eventually "conquor" the world (for better or worse.)At the center of the book are economic motives: time, since recorded history seen in qualifying terms (ie "night" and "day") became carefully organized. To European city-dwellers, time was money. And money is key here - the difference, for example between "price" and "value" is an abstraction that European merchants were quick to seize upon. This revolution of mentality is what was revolutionary Crosby argues. The revolution is seen in a variety of ways: in art (with the gradual change in persepctive as evidenced by the Renaissance masters), in music (as it moves from monophony to polyphony), and especially in bookeeping. The revolution, of course, was tremendously aided by the development of the moveable-type printing press (another adaptaiton of a Chinese invention.)That the Chinese, who had many of these technologies centuries before Europe did not use them to exploit the world as the Europeans did (remember Zheng He?) is a function of mentalite: in the Confucian world, the merchants occupy the bottom rung of the social ladder, as they produce nothing (but rather simply move it from one place to another, thereby not helping or advancing society.) In Europe, the businessman is king - from the Di Medici, the Sforzas, the Fuggers and the Rothschilds it is the bankers and the merchants that helped the nation state centralize, it was the merchant class that colonized, it was the merchant class that pushed for faster and more efficient production.A brilliant examination of well-trod ground. Highly recommended.

Crosby uses the metaphor of "striking a match" to describe the event, which combined with quantification, the kindling in Crosby's metaphor, to generate a revolution in the West. The match is visualization: "Visualization and quantification: together they snap the padlock - reality is fettered" (p. 229). As a type of visualization, a symbolic system allowed advancements that were not otherwise possible. In mathematics, accounting and music, having a concise and powerful symbolism freed the mind to range and to create - no longer a prisoner of memory. As Crosby notes: "Because the algebraist could concentrate on the symbols and put aside ... what they represented, he or she could perform unprecedented intellectual feats" (p. 120). Similarly in painting, perspective allowed a new way to manipulate light in order to make more accurate pictures, for the glory of God and man, thus replacing the multiple and spatially incongruous "Nows" in medieval painting with "'exactness and predictability'" (p. 197).Often Crosby's extended metaphors are annoying without being instructive: "Bruno was executed for heresy in 1600 - to no avail. The cat, already out of the bag was having kittens" (p. 105); "For us today, things exist in space like vegetables in an aspic salad ... the aspic was starting to stiffen" (pp. 170, 172); "The moment had arrived for a trumpet solo, and the only instrument available was a hunting horn... But let us deal first with getting from the hunting horn to the trumpet" (p. 111). It seems as if he's chuckling to himself as he's writing this.Otherwise this is a wonderful summary of how the West's development was distinct from that of other areas, such as China and the Middle East, by arguing how quantification and visualization allowed Europeans to perceive the world in a unique manner which allowed them to manipulate the world in ways not dreamt of before. Ironically, Crosby quotes Johan Huizinga (pp. 131-2), who argued that this new emphasis on sight was an indication of the decline in Western civilization because of its insistence on seeing something visible as a necessary precursor to initiate thought.

Bruce Lerro Author: Forging Promethean Psychology: From the Middle Ages To The End of the 19th centuryWhat does the use of Hindu-Arabic numbers, linear perspective painting, polyphonic singing and double-entry bookkeeping have in common? Some very provocative answers are provided by Alfred Crosby in his clear and ambitious book The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society 1250-1600. Crosby systematically compares the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period in the areas of astronomy, cartography, mathematics, painting, music, commerce, accounting, military techniques space as well as spiritual and historical time.He argues there is a direct line between an increase in measurement, mathematical symbols, logical symbols, rational analysis and universal scientific judgments as we proceed from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period. Crosby shows how so many of the scientific inventions of the early modern period-- specifically the activity of measuring-- required the use of visual technology. Everything from telescopes to microscopes; from clock-making to algebra; from shipbuilding navigation to perspective painting and musical scores involved sight. Composers, painters, astronomers and bookkeepers were committed to quantitative visual perception in the material of their craft. Essentially, he argues that the quantification of reality was one of the secrets that made the Western world different from the rest of the world for better and for worse. Crosby has a rare skill of being grounded in scientific study while being able to write for an educated lay audience. This is a wonderful book.

邦訳も出ているクロスビーの代表作のひとつ。自然現象に数値を当てはめる(数値化する)ことが絵画や音楽の、いわゆる西洋用文明の曙になり、最終的には複式簿記という世界把握の方法に結実したとする結論は見事というしかない。ところでこの本、ハードカバー本の表紙とソフトカバーで表紙が違っています。両方持っていますが、ハードカバーでは左利きのパチオリが描かれています。ダヴィンチと間違ったのかな。

I had heard of this book but got around to reading it only now. How I wish I had done so earlier. A lot of the intellectual struggles I faced over the past decade could have found an easier solution with the reading of this book. It provides a very insightful argument about the manner in which the Mentalite of Europe changed in the late medieval period and how it under-grinds modernity. This is essential reading to understand why Europe's historical trajectory forked off from other parts of the world about 500 years ago or so, and how it has changed all of us.