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Podcast: New Books in American Studies
Episode: Hector Vera, "Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025)
Description: Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and its preference for practicality has not adopted the most practical, scientific, and innovative system of measurement? Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America (Vanderbilt UP, 2025) by Dr. Hector Vera answers these questions by analyzing the political, economic, and international factors that determined the trajectory of the United States as a nation self-excluded from one of the most successful global technical languages.
Using a historical-comparative approach and qualitative analysis of archival ma...