Lawrence Busch, “Standards: Recipes for Reality” (MIT Press, 2011)

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As Lawrence Busch reminds us, standards are all around us governing seating arrangements, medicine, experimental objects and subjects and even romance novels. In Standards: Recipes for Reality (MIT Press, 2011) Busch provides a wide ranging and accessible analysis of the ways that standards structure the world. More than simply providing a typology of standards, Busch shows the ways that the impetus to standardization and standardized differentiation have transformed as a part of historical and political changes. Under contemporary neo-liberalism the drive to standardization has generated sophisticated relationships between standards, certified professional bodies and accrediting agencies, relationships that Busch provides the resources for thinking about politically. Using plenty of accessible and insightful examples and clearly in contact with much of the literature in Science and Technology Studies Busch’s book is a great read and a great entry into thinking about technoscience, power and neo-liberalism. Give it a read.