The Story of Measurement
By Andrew Robinson
Thames & Hudson £19.95, 224 pages
FT bookshop price: £15.96

This is a big book: 10 x 8ins or, as they would have said in the 14th century when there were 36 grains of barley to the foot, “30 x 24 barleycorns”. As for its scope, The Story of Measurement covers not merely the obvious elements that we record – distance, time, temperature – but also the more intriguing: body mass, light frequencies, scientists’ peer group ratings and stress of both humans and building materials.