Eric Hobsbawm Quotes
The most lasting and universal consequence of the French revolution is the metric system
Hobsbawm, Eric J. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.
Based on his and most other scientists recommendations the United States finally changed officially to the metric system in the 1970s. Congress passed laws, Executive Orders were issued, the Department of Education provided materials, and schools put it in their curricula. However, America never changed. The difficulty of making the change was not imaginary, but real. The government could not do it, because the majority of the people did not want it done.
This quotation is interesting for 3 reasons. First, it demonstrates that in 1816 the nation still did not have a standard system of weights and measures. Second, note the very polite and politic manner that Madison told the Congress to get busy and do their job. Third, here is Madison talking about a decimal based system. The English system was unique in Europe and all the other countries led by France used a metric system based on 10. Americans, despite the hostility then towed England, there was little support for a metric system. Madison and other leaders, who knew the metric system to be far superior felt that it was more important to have any standard system of weights and measures and so no one held out for a metric system which never was accepted by Americans who were not scientists or worldwide manufacturers.
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm CH FRSL FBA was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. His best-known works include his trilogy about what he called the "long 19th century" (The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 and The Age of Empire: 1875–1914), The Age of Extremes on the short 20th century, and an edited volume that introduced the influential idea of "invented traditions".
