Figures, Which They Thought Could Not Lie: The Problem with Calculation in the Eighteenth Century

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface: Quantification and Its Discontents ix
4. Notes on Style xxi
5. Introduction: Political Calculations 1
6. Finding the Money: Public Accounting and Political Arithmetic after 1688 43
7. The Great Project of the Equivalent: a Story of the Number 398,085½ 79
8. The Balance-of-Trade Battle and the Party Politics of Calculation in 1713–1714 115
9. The Preeminent Bookkeepers in Christendom: Personalities of Calculation 153
10. Intrinsic Values: Figuring Out the South Sea Bubble 187
11. Futures Projected: Robert Walpole’s Political Calculations 227
12. Figures, Which They Thought Could Not Lie: The Problem with Calculation in the Eighteenth Century 263
13. Conclusion 300
14. Archival Collections Cited 325
15. Notes on Printed Sources 327
16. Abbreviations 329
17. Notes 331
18. Acknowledgments 399
19. Index 405