Introduction : why measurement matters -- The kindling of civilisation : the ancient world, the first units of measurement, and their cognitive rewards -- Measure and the social order : the importance of metrology for early states and the fabric of society -- The proper subject of measurement : how the scientific revolution expanded measure's domain -- The quantifying spirit : the disenchantment of the world and the history of hot and cold -- The metric revolution : the radical politics of the metric system and its origin in the French Revolution -- A grid laid across the world : the surveying of land, the colonisation of the US, and the power of abstraction -- Measuring life and death : the invention of statistics and the birth of average -- The battle of the standards : metric vs imperial and metrology's culture war -- For all times, for all people : how metric units transcended physical reality and conquered the world -- The managed life : measurement's place in modern society and in our understanding of ourselves.