Reviews
'The Cost of Living in America is about an index number, which is to say, about the compression and homogenization of a plethora of diverse goods and activities into a single figure. Stapleford uses history brilliantly to disassemble that index into its historical constituents, demonstrating how economic measurement has reconfigured labor and business, war and poverty indeed, the modern American state.' Ted Porter, University of California, Los Angeles, '… I am fully convinced by this book and would recommend it strongly … it is an extremely informative book with much index theory and politics. It is very fascinating and extremely useful for everybody who is interested in price indices, inflation measurement, social policy and the general political problems of official statistics or, as Stapleford's put it, in 'the deep and complicated entanglement of rationalized governance, cost-of-living statistics, and economic reforms' … One might also add 'and in the constitution of official statistics in a democracy'.' Peter von der Lippe, Journal of Economics and Statistics, 'This exceptionally fine book gives the all-important Consumer Price Index the nuanced, contextualized, probing, century-long history that it deserves. Starting with the first official price, wage, and family budget series, Stapleford details the tensions between theoretical and practical knowledge, between professional and bureaucratic standing, and between those asserting 'objective' as against normative purposes for measuring and comparing across income classes real changes in buying power and in the definition of 'living.' The measurement of poverty or the failure to measure it fairly and seek its causes is rightly a big part of this compelling narrative. This book is a vital addition to the growing literature of the making of policy knowledge.' Mary O. Furner, University of California, Santa Barbara, "[The book] is intellectual and political history of the first rate. Well researched, carefully argued, it does a good job of describing the technical difficulties in price indices without losing focus on the historical narrative." EH.net, Trevon Logan, Ohio State University, "Thomas Stapleford has done a magnificent job taking us inside the Bureau of Labor Statistics to demonstrate the political and ideological structures, in the government and out, that have so decisively framed the single most important index generated by the American state. Henceforth, no student of the economy, of labor, or of the welfare state can think intelligently about their subject without making use of this insightful and learned analysis." - Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara, "What could be more objective than collecting cost-of-living statistics? Stapleford masterfully shows that the process of determining what it cost to live in America was actually deeply political and contested over the course of the twentieth century. Who was doing the counting, with what measures, and to what ends made all the difference. More broadly, this is a fascinating and important case study of the political uses of social science research." - Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, 'Thomas Stapleford has done a magnificent job taking us inside the Bureau of Labor Statistics to demonstrate the political and ideological structures, in the government and out, that have so decisively framed the single most important index generated by the American state. Henceforth, no student of the economy, of labor, or of the welfare state can think intelligently about their subject without making use of this insightful and learned analysis.' Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara, "This exceptionally fine book gives the all-important Consumer Price Index the nuanced, contextualized, probing, century-long history that it deserves. Starting with the first official price, wage, and family budget series, Stapleford details the tensions between theoretical and practical knowledge, between professional and bureaucratic standing, and between those asserting 'objective' as against normative purposes for measuring and comparing across income classes real changes in buying power and in the definition of 'living.' The measurement of poverty - or the failure to measure it fairly and seek its causes - is rightly a big part of this compelling narrative. This book is a vital addition to the growing literature of the making of policy knowledge." - Mary O. Furner, University of California, Santa Barbara, 'What could be more objective than collecting cost-of-living statistics? Stapleford masterfully shows that the process of determining what it cost to live in America was actually deeply political and contested over the course of the twentieth century. Who was doing the counting, with what measures, and to what ends made all the difference. More broadly, this is a fascinating and important case study of the political uses of social science research.' Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, "The Cost of Living in America is about an index number, which is to say, about the compression and homogenization of a plethora of diverse goods and activities into a single figure. Stapleford uses history brilliantly to disassemble that index into its historical constituents, demonstrating how economic measurement has reconfigured labor and business, war and poverty - indeed, the modern American state." - Ted Porter, University of California, Los Angeles