Quantifying the World

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Good data, Michael Ward argues, serve to enhance a perception about lifeas well as to deepen an understanding of reality. This history of the UN's role infostering international statistics in the postwar period demonstrates how statisticshave shaped our understanding of the world. Drawing on well over 40 years ofexperience working as a statistician and economist in more than two dozen countriesaround the world, Ward traces the evolution of statistical ideas and how they haveresponded to the needs of policy while unraveling the question of why certain datawere considered important and why other data and concerns were not. The bookexplores the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of the UN's statisticalwork and how each dimension has provided opportunities for describing the well-beingof the world community. Quantifying the World also reveals some of the missedopportunities for pursuing alternative models.