This is a 'review essay' of three books: (1) Standards: recipes for reality
, by Lawrence Busch, Cambridge and London, The MIT
Press, 2011, 390 pp., $23.99 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-262-01638-4  ---(2) The gold standard: the challenge of evidence-based medicine and standardization
in health care,
by Stefan Timmermans and Marc Berg, Philadelphia, Temple University
Press, 2003, 269 pp., $25.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-59213-188-4 ---(3) Standards and their stories: how quantifying, classifying, and formalizing practices
shape everyday life
, edited by Martha Lampland and Susan Leigh Star, Ithaca and London,
Cornell University Press, 2009, 244 pp., $22.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-8014-7461-3