The Sum of Our Discontent is a nonfiction book by David Boyle. It was published by Texere in 2001. The tagline and theme of the book is "Why numbers make us irrational". Premise The author's premise is that humans have been trying to improve the quality of life and happiness by using numbers to count an increasing amount of things, and while it has worked in many ways, it has also had a cost in sanitizing the representation of existence by trying to reduce everything to numbers, and has not often been very effective. This tension is very similar to the one described in the classic The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution of C. P. Snow. Synopsis The first chapter is entitled "A Short History of Counting". It describes the progression of numbers from being considered divine in early history to their present-day pragmatism. It opens in 1904 Berlin with the story of a counting horse named Clever Hans, who was, to the relief of all, proved by psychologist Oskar Pfungst to not really be able to count. This fit in with the earlier opinion of Nicholas of Cusa, a cardinal who was a pioneer of quantification, that counting is what separates man from animals. Boyle then covers the history of counting in detail, starting with when numbers were considered to be divine and were the exclusive domain of the accountant-priests of the Assyrian Empire, then going on to Pythagoras and the Ancient Greeks who believed numbers represented the harmony of nature. Legend has it that Pythagoras may have studied with the Magi and been influenced by them after having been held captive in Babylon. Even a later practical and scientific mathematician such as Heinrich Hertz agreed with this natural significance of numbers. Boyle then goes to the medieval fascination and obsession with clocks that are thought to have possibly been invented by Gerbert of Aurillac, a monk. The long and fascinating history of the abacus also turns up time and time again in counting history. Luca Pacioli's invention of double-entry accounting further brought us to the present day situation of numbers being used to measure everything. The next chapters tell the stories of various historical figures and how they relate to the book's concept. They are all good stories; many of them focus on the unintended consequences of the ideas of their creators, specifically Thomas Malthus and John