Dan Bouk

I'm someone who has spent a lot of time looking at census returns in the course of doing genealogical research, so I came to this book pretty interested. However, I'm confident that even if you're not a census geek, you'll have a good shot at enjoying Democracy's Data. Bouk interprets census questions and answers as they relate to how America has and is changing. He expertly demonstrates how the census impacts and is impacted by American politics. If you have any interest in how America functions or how data is collected, you're likely to like this book.

If you happen to be a census geek, of course, you'll find even more here. I learned why each individual was recorded on the census starting in 1850. I learned why questions about being of voting age appeared and then disappeared. This will definitely help me as I continue to research my family and look at census returns, but I think it will also help me be an informed and active citizen who cares about how we are counted.… (meer)

I will confess that I came to Democracy's Data by Dan Bouk with a bit of apprehension. The ideas it seemed to cover interested me as both history and as a call to safeguard future censuses from the calamity of the 2020 census. But it is a book about data, how readable could it be? Turns out, quite readable and enjoyable.

Bouk starts by offering a personal glimpse into his motivation and how it led him to the 1940 census. He then offers everything from chapters that could be excerpted as how-tos for reading not only the census but many other data sets to chapters that would be right at home in a history book.

Some of the chapters absolutely pulled me in and had me looking both to our past and to our future. Some chapters had me searching for census information myself online. Readers will be able to take whatever they want from this book. Want to better understand the census and how it is used as well as how you can use it? Want some history of the census in general but the 1940 one in particular? Want some history of the New Deal and the infighting that it inspired? Want a cautionary tale for why we need to strive for fair censuses, as well as how we might try to even define what fair is? This book will offer these takeaways for you, based largely on what you bring to the book yourself.

I would highly recommend this for those interested in how our government makes many of the decisions that involve the population, from assigning legislative seats to fueling partisan conspiracy theories.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)