In this Book
- Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life
- Book
- 2016
- Published by: The University of North Carolina Press
summary
In this engagingly written biography, Tamara Plakins Thornton delves into the life and work of Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), a man Thomas Jefferson once called a "meteor in the hemisphere." Bowditch was a mathematician, astronomer, navigator, seafarer, and business executive whose Enlightenment-inspired perspectives shaped nineteenth-century capitalism while transforming American life more broadly. Enthralled with the precision and certainty of numbers and the unerring regularity of the physical universe, Bowditch operated and represented some of New England's most powerful institutions—from financial corporations to Harvard College—as clockwork mechanisms. By examining Bowditch's pathbreaking approaches to institutions, as well as the political and social controversies they provoked, Thornton's biography sheds new light on the rise of capitalism, American science, and social elites in the early republic.
Fleshing out the multiple careers of Nathaniel Bowditch, this book is at once a lively biography, a window into the birth of bureaucracy, and a portrait of patrician life, giving us a broader, more-nuanced understanding of how powerful capitalists operated during this era and how the emerging quantitative sciences shaped the modern experience.
Fleshing out the multiple careers of Nathaniel Bowditch, this book is at once a lively biography, a window into the birth of bureaucracy, and a portrait of patrician life, giving us a broader, more-nuanced understanding of how powerful capitalists operated during this era and how the emerging quantitative sciences shaped the modern experience.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xiv
- Introduction
- pp. 1-6
- 1. Born into Salem
- pp. 7-32
- 3. Parts Unknown
- pp. 33-56
- 3. The Navigator
- pp. 57-81
- 4. Gentleman Actuary
- pp. 82-108
- 5. Celestial Events
- pp. 109-134
- 6. The Prudent Man
- pp. 135-160
- 7. The Clockwork Corporation
- pp. 161-189
- 8. Harvard and Other Imperfect Mechanisms
- pp. 190-216
- 10. Final Reckonings
- pp. 243-256
- Bibliography
- pp. 323-374
Additional Information
ISBN
9781469628110
Related ISBN(s)
9781469626932, 9781469626949, 9781469663937, 9798890849632
MARC Record
OCLC
939597862
Pages
416
Launched on MUSE
2016-02-21
Language
English
Open Access
No