Engineering Rules

Reviewed by: Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880 by JoAnne Yates and Craig N. Murphy Geoffrey Jones (bio) Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880 By JoAnne Yates and Craig N. Murphy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. Pp. 416. Engineering Rules examines the history of private voluntary standards from the 1880s until the present day. If the subject summons up mental images of a worthy but rather tedious and narrow work, such a description does not fit this book at all. Instead, Yates and Murphy combine impressively deep scholarly research with colorful personalities who have major agency in events, providing a careful and illuminating positioning of the story in the wider political economy. As a result, the authors rescue standards from obscurity and assert their role in providing "a critical infrastructure for the global economy" (p. 2). There is a lot going on in this book, so it is helpful that Yates and Murphy place the story within an overarching historical narrative. They argue that standards setting took place in three different historical contexts. The first period—from the late nineteenth century to World War II—saw engineers, scientists, business practitioners, and others—but rarely governmental actors—sitting on committees that created voluntary standards for the nuts and bolts of the new manufacturing and transportation industries and technologies. The achievements were considerable within individual countries but much less so internationally, and the imperfections showed up during World War II. A second wave of standardization focused on international standards was symbolized by the creation of the International [End Page 865] Standards Organization in 1946. This era of standardization had some dramatic consequences. Chapter 5 explores how developing standards made possible the shipping container revolution during the postwar decades. The third stage of standards setting was driven by the demands of computer networking after 1990. The protocols under which the Internet operated were worked out by organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force, with again little formal role for government agencies. Yates and Murphy have undertaken an extraordinary amount of primary research. The reconstruction of the stories of pivotal figures such as Charles le Maistre and Olle Sturén counts among the achievements of the book. However, the authors could have more closely examined the underlying assumption that voluntary standards setting was a good thing. This may be true, but setting standards involves choices, and in each era there were winners, losers, and those left out. It would have been helpful if the book had pondered the paths not taken. A brief conclusion tantalizingly points to literatures that have been less optimistic about voluntary standards. "Serious theorists raise important broad questions," the authors note, "about the ways in which obscure committees of technocrats may wield social power through standard setting" (p. 334). However, the text has no engagement with such "serious theorists." The darker side is evident when the authors venture into social and environmental standards in Chapter 9. The International Standards Organization and other groups emerge as entering this field primarily as a good source of business, and their impact on the real world appears minimal. Ever optimistic, Yates and Murphy conclude that the various endeavors discussed were the last best hope "until all the world's most powerful governments commit to regulating the harms of economic globalization" (p. 331). An alternative view is that such standards have unleashed a tidal wave of greenwashing, which has made responding to global environmental and social problems harder rather than easier. In sum, this truly scholarly book is a must-read for academics working in the history of technology, business and economic history, and organizational studies. Geoffrey Jones Geoffrey Jones is Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at the Harvard Business School. His research is focused on the historical impact of globalization and the ecological and social responsibility of business. He is the author of Profits and Sustainability: A Global History of Green Entrepreneurship (Oxford University Press, 2017). His next book, Deeply Responsible: A Global History of Values-Driven Business Leadership, is forthcoming with Harvard University Press. Citation: Jones, Geoffrey. "Review of Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880 by JoAnne Yates and Craig N

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