Pt. I. Statistics and labor reform, 1880-1930: centralization and its discontents. Before there were indexes: the "Labor Question" and labor statistics, 1880-1910 ; The cost of living in peace and war: statistics and economic management, 1910-1918 ; Searching for normalcy: cost-of-living statistics and industrial relations in the 1920s
Pt. II. Rationalizing the democratic political order, 1930-1960: cost-of-living statistics in the heart of the New Deal. The nature of revolution: the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the New Deal ; Tracking an elusive home-front "enemy": price indexes and wage adjustment ; Statistics from the bottom up: union research on the cost of living ; Bounded conflict: collective bargaining and the Consumer Price Index in the Cold War
Pt. III. The CPI and the federal government, 1960-2000: a "welfare" index for the welfare state. Accounting for growth: macroeconomic analysis and the transformation of price index theory ; From workers to the welfare state: the Consumer Price Index and the rise of indexation
Epilogue: governance and economic statistics.
