Sorting Things Out

A revealing and surprising look at how classification systems can shape both worldviews and social interactions.What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification--the scaffolding of information infrastr... >Voir plus