MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 02025cam a22003378i 4500
001 2015032057
003 DLC
005 20150826083657.0
008 150817s2016 ncu b s001 0beng c
010 $a 2015032057
020 $a9781469626932 (cloth : alk. paper)
020 $z9781469626949 (ebook)
040 $aNcU/DLC$beng$erda$cNcU
042 $apcc
043 $an-us---
050 00 $aQB36.B7$bT55 2016
082 00 $a510.92$aB$223
100 1 $aThornton, Tamara Plakins,$d1957-$eauthor.
245 10 $aNathaniel Bowditch and the power of numbers :$bhow a nineteenth-century man of business, science, and the sea changed American life /$cTamara Plakins Thornton.
263 $a1604
264 1 $aChapel Hill :$bThe University of North Carolina Press,$c[2016]
300 $apages cm
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520 $a"Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), a mathematician, astronomer, and insurance executive--and a major agent of Enlightenment-era change ... took his personal work habits and blended them with the certainty and predictability of the science that he studied, creating something completely new for his time: the impersonal bureaucracy. Enthralled with the precision and certainty of numbers and the unerring regularity of the physical universe, Bowditch shaped some of New England's most powerful institutions, from financial corporations to Harvard College, into clockwork mechanisms. He ran his insurance company with rule-bound regularity, implementing systematic and novel paperwork procedures, methodical bookkeeping practices, and standardized filing systems, helping to usher in a new era of intellectual history"--$cProvided by publisher.
600 10 $aBowditch, Nathaniel,$d1773-1838.
650 0 $aAstronomers$zUnited States$vBiography.
650 0 $aMathematicians$zUnited States$vBiography.
650 0 $aIndustrial organization$zUnited States$xHistory.