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Methods/Theory 537

and the pursuit of economic growth and economic pro- logical transformations have changed vision research as
ductivity in the postWorld War II era (Charles Maier), artificial intelligence altered our conception of bodies,
though unfortunately Philipsen does not directly engage brains, and the management of culture. She attributes
or cite any of these scholars. these changes in part to the proliferation of intellectual
Though few of his criticisms are new, his volume nicely activity built on diagrammatic and schematic visualiza-
summarizes and articulates GDPs flaws. Philipsens tion across a wide variety of disciplines (cybernetics, de-
book, however, raises questions for historians. For one, a sign and systems theory, computational processes, and
key claim of Philipsens book is that GDP has spanned statistical thinking).
the world and reshaped how societies define and pursue Halpern selects an array of figures in city planning,
their development. But Philipsens historical analysis government data management, and other activities to
largely ends with the standardization of national income consider the general shift in the relationship between the
accounting in the 1950s. So, how did GDP take off across terms vision and reason in her subtitle. The examples

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the world? The author might have examined how GDP are indisputably significant. Charles and Ray Eames
shaped specific development strategies and the extent to were crucial to mid-twentieth-century design (broadly
which thinking in terms of GDP translated to actions on understood as a set of analytic principles, not merely im-
the ground. Moreover, there were many critics of GDP plementation techniques). Their canonical works are still
and its use from the metrics inception. Philipsen ac- cited as approaches to thinking about issues of scale, pat-
knowledges Kuznetss early warnings, but from the 1940s tern, project, and form. They extended the early-twenti-
onward there were extensive international conflicts about eth-century formalist language of graphics (with their
how to standardize national income accounting, what roots in abstract art and later applied aesthetics epito-
GDP should include, and whether non-Western coun- mized by the Bauhaus curriculum in the 1920s and
tries should rely on GDP. Why did GDP, as currently de- 1930s) into broad theoretical and practical application.
fined, triumph in those conflicts? In addition, Philipsen Norbert Wieners wartime research in cybernetics had a
criticizes the logic of GDP, which is a vague way of im- widespread impact on the development of feedback
puting tremendous power to a metric. At times, it seems mechanisms integral to smart systems in many do-
he argues against much more: the economics discipline, mains. In the 1940s, Warren S. McCulloch and Walter
economic reasoning, neoliberalism, rising inequality, and Pitts engineered the first experiments in neural networks,
economic growth based on fossil fuels, to name a few. which were meant to bootstrap responses in electrical cir-
Thinking in terms of GDP (the logic of countries trying cuits into emergent capacities. In second-order cybernet-
to raise GDP) may exacerbate each of these separate is- ics their work has been incorporated into the design of
sues, but Philipsen might have done more to connect and complex systems. These figures contributed research that
explain how GDP relates to the origins and evolution of combined new models of intelligence with engineering
these other trends. capacities augmented by computational systems to pro-
In sum, this book nicely summarizes the many critiques duce the systems that are an integral part of constructing
of GDP. Philipsens knowledge of economic theory, sta- (intellectually as well as literally) our contemporary
tistics, econometric accounting, and history is impressive. world.
It is hard not to conclude after reading the book that The book begins with a chilling description of the city
there are very serious flaws in the way that many people of Songdo, Korea, designed from the ground up as a
measure, define, and seek to pursue economic growth. data-driven and data-producing environment. In a land-
While it would have benefited from greater historical scape where bandwidth and sustainability are fantasized
analysis of the post-1945 world, it offers many insights as organizing life through a proliferation of interfaces to
that should encourage undergraduates to rethink many the point of ubiquity a government-corporate partner-
basic assumptions about contemporary economic life and ship monitors every aspect of existence: traffic flows,
better understand why reliance on the big little number changes in atmosphere, every social and financial trans-
should worry us all. action, streets, windows, homes, and smokestacks (4). As
STEPHEN MACEKURA Halpern points out, the promotional rhetoric of such
Indiana University, Bloomington projects is shot through with valorizations of this fully
intelligent system as an elegant solution to manage-
ORIT HALPERN. Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and ment and control in the twenty-first century. Her obser-
Reason since 1945. (Experimental Futures.) Durham, vation of Songdo leads to a crucial question: [H]ow did
N.C.: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. ix, 342. Cloth perception, understood as a capacity to consume band-
$99.95, paper $27.95. width, come to reorganize life itself? (5).
As studies in reformulation of observation and knowl-
How has a rhetoric of beautiful (elegant in the mathe- edge (17), Halperns chapters examine four aspects of
matical sense as well as the graphical) data come to have current culture as outcomes of the historical connections
potent ideological force in the last sixty years? Orit Hal- between technical developments and artistic practices
pern suggests that aestheticization has played a crucial (both broadly construed). Her first study concerns cy-
role in legitimizing data visualization and graphical bernetics and temporality; the second, attention and dis-
modes of reasoning since 1945. She argues that techno- traction conceived in relation to visualization; the third,

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538 Reviews of Books

rationalization of cognition; and the last, a notion of COMPARATIVE/WORLD/TRANSNATIONAL

biopolitical governance tied to statistical and data man-
agement. Halpern puts many concepts into play. She PEDRO MACHADO. Ocean of Trade: South Asian Mer-
qualifies both vision and reason as areas of research, chants, Africa and the Indian Ocean, c. 17501850. New
of lived physical perception, and of studies in cognition, York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xv, 315.
and as metaphors for the organization of knowledge. $79.00.
Concepts this large can be unwieldy, and hard to link to
Pedro Machados Ocean of Trade: South Asian Mer-
specific historical events. For instance, at the beginning
chants, Africa and the Indian Ocean, c. 17501850 is an
of chapter 3, Halpern suggests that the postwar realiza-
in-depth study of the commercial world of the Bania
tion that rationality was not reasonable has vanished
(Vaniya) maritime merchants of Diu and Daman (ports
from the cultural record (148). But has it? The intellec-
on the Gujarat coast) in a period that is generally under-
tual traditions of skepticism on which she draws have

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long and persistent histories. In the last half century, sus- stood in the literature as that of European imperial and
picion of reason and rationality has long been the norm commercial domination and in which indigenous South
in communities of critical design practice, poetics, aes- Asian networks of trade were greatly undermined by or
thetics, visual art, digital media studies, and cultural stud- subordinated to a European-dominated capitalist world
ies, especially among the scholars who provide Halperns economy. Divided into five chapters, an introduction that
intellectual framework (e.g., Michel Foucault, Lisa Gitel- sets the historiographical context for this study, and a
man, N. Katherine Hayles, Brian Massumi, etc.). brief conclusion summing up the main arguments, the
The books main argument, however, focuses on book challenges this conventional view and calls for a
changes in cultural values and ideology. For example, she more nuanced understanding of the history of the Indian
proposes that the cybernetic reformulation of reason Ocean world economy and the interaction of colonial-im-
produced new forms of measurement and methods in the perial and indigenous structures of trade within it. Ma-
social and behavioral sciences, encouraging a shift toward chado explores the dynamics of the flourishing Bania
data-driven research adjoined to a valorization of visual- maritime trade between Diu and Daman and Mozam-
ization as the benchmark of truth, and as a moral and bique from 1750 to 1850. This trade was based on the ex-
democratic virtue (148). In a move typical of Halperns change of Gujarati textiles for African ivory and slaves.
approach, she claims this chapter is not a theory of psy- The book underscores the centrality of Bania merchants
chosis but rather a historical investigation into the cyber- and Gujarati textiles in the Mozambique-based maritime
netic relationship to temporality that suggests that cyber- trade of the southwestern Indian Ocean. Cotton textile
netic concerns with how time would be organized in from Gujarat, Machado argues, served as a currency in
circuits was fundamental to the reformulation of intelli- the East African economies, and all commercial transac-
gence as rational and produced a new epistemology of tions were mediated by it. What contributed to the pre-
pragmatic behavioralism, embodied and affective logic, dominance and success of the Banias in this trade was
and nonliberal agents that continue to inform contempo- their access to textile production centers of Gujarat, es-
rary practices in fields ranging from neuroscience to ma- pecially Jambusar, and to the capital and credit markets
chine learning to finance (148). This is a lot to juggle. of Surat. By controlling the supply and distribution of
Causal connections between technological innovation Gujarati textiles in coastal East Africa and the hinter-
and cultural change are hard to prove. The connection lands, the merchants played a crucial role in the regions
between data-driven research and the development of di- export trade, and also secured supplies of ivory and
agrammatic instruments for intellectual work in sche- slaves, for which there was a substantial demand in Guja-
matic visual documents for planning, design, or other re- rat and western India. Machado examines the nature and
search is neither direct nor instrumental. The schematic structure of GujaratEast Africa trade and highlights the
drawings used for circuits, traffic flows, organizational role of family and community networks and contracts
systems, or data structures were not invented in the post- and partnerships with the African and Portuguese mer-
1945 period any more than statistics and political arith- chants in the successful commercial enterprise of the
metic. They all have long histories. Despite very few in- Banias. The Banias predominance in this trade, how-
novations in graphical expressions in the last decades, the ever, ended by the 1840s when the slave trade declined
interest in visualizing processes and making non-visible and a shortage of tusk reduced the ivory trade. Moreover,
aspects of cultural experience legible through graphic the role that the Gujarati Bania merchants of Diu and
form has expanded exponentially. The consumability of Daman had formerly played was then taken over by
eye-candy-like, data-driven visualizations that appear in another group of merchants, the Bhatias of Kuchh and
public art, private galleries, and published compendia is Kathiawar in north western Gujarat.
evidence of their seductive success as ideological instru- Ocean of Trade is as much a book on East Africa and
ments. Halpern wants us to reflect upon the implications its maritime trading world as it is on Gujarat and the
of such aesthetic legitimation and ways we might resist Banias. About half of the book (especially chapters 4 and
the force of data displays that are integrated into the 5) is devoted to East Africas export economy. Here again
management infrastructure of technologized culture. the author examines the complex web of coastal and
JOHANNA DRUCKER trans-regional trade and the involvement of American,
University of California, Los Angeles Portuguese, African, Arab, and Gujarati Bania merchants

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2016