Contrary to what you learned in kindergarten, counting is more art than arithmetic; the simplest tally starts with judgments about what counts. In a nation which originally counted a slave as three-fifths of a person and where algorithms disproportionately consign Black Americans to prison, it is now more important than ever to understand how numbers can be both weapons of the powerful and tools of resistance. From election results to COVID statistics, political scientist Deborah Stone demonstrates "how being in thrall to numbers is misguided and dangerous" (NYTBR).

"[This] is a stimulating layperson's guide to the pseudo-mathematical rationalizations behind so much of what governments do."—Publishers Weekly