AbstractThis chapter analyzes rankings as a powerful, formal mode of evaluation. After raising a series of questions that are important for understanding evaluation more broadly, it illustrates their generative effects by applying them to rankings. In doing so it emphasizes the importance of neo-liberalism as the context for rankings, the distinctive cognitive relationships that rankings produce, the expertise that they challenge, their relationship to markets, and their effects on those who live with their judgments. It concludes by suggesting that such formal modes of evaluation represent a quest to limit the uncertainty and ambiguity that humans face.