This book has to take account of an enormous number of disciplines, of worldwide quantification systems that may not be familiar to its readers, and of units that may now be discovered only in historical contexts. Science and mathematics feature largely, of course. But the book also contains (for example) the units of analytical linguistics, of music, of textiles and cloth, of paper and publishing, of minerals and metals, and of military ranks and formations. The measurements of sports and games constitute a sizeable element of the text, as do the listing and history of coins and currencies of the present and of the past. - Foreword.