Title How our days became numbered : risk and the rise of the statistical individual / Dan Bouk

Published Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2015 ©2015

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Description 1 online resource (xxx, 294 pages) : illustrations Contents Classing -- Fatalizing -- Writing -- Smoothing -- A modern conception of death -- Valuing lives, in four movements -- Failing the future -- Conclusion: Numbering in layers -- Epilogue: The cards we carry Summary Long before the age of Big Data or the rise of today's self-quantifiers, American capitalism embraced risk --and proceeded to number our days. Life insurers led the way, developing numerical practices for measuring individuals and groups, predicting their fates, and intervening in their futures. Emanating from the gilded boardrooms of Lower Manhattan and making their way into drawing rooms and tenement apartments across the nation, these practices soon came to change the futures they purported to divine. How Our Days Became Numbered tells a story of corporate culture remaking American culture--a story of intellectuals and professionals in and around insurance companies who reimagined Americans' lives through numbers and taught ordinary Americans to do the same. Making individuals statistical did not happen easily. Legislative battles raged over the propriety of discriminating by race or of smoothing away the effects of capitalism's fluctuations on individuals. Meanwhile, debates within companies set doctors against actuaries and agents, resulting in elaborate, secretive systems of surveillance and calculation. Dan Bouk reveals how, in a little over half a century, insurers laid the groundwork for the much-quantified, risk-infused world that we live in today. To understand how the financial world shapes modern bodies, how risk assessments can perpetuate inequalities of race or sex, and how the quantification and claims of risk on each of us continue to grow, we must take seriously the history of those who view our lives as a series of probabilities to be managed Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL In English Online resource; title from e-book title screen (EBL platform, viewed May 5, 2015) digitized 2011 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Subject Life insurance -- United States -- History Insurance -- Statistical methods -- History Insurance companies -- Social aspects -- United States BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Insurance -- Risk Assessment & Management. Insurance companies -- Social aspects Insurance -- Statistical methods Life insurance Lebensversicherung Statistik Lebenserwartung Risikoanalyse Rasse Assurance-vie -- États-Unis -- Histoire. Assurance -- Méthodes statistiques. Compagnies d'assurances -- Aspect social. Livförsäkring -- historia. Försäkring. Statistisk metod. Försäkringsbolag -- sociala aspekter. United States USA Genre/Form Electronic books History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780226259208 022625920X

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