Promises and Problems of Quantitative Research in Central European History

Abstract

T T~NLIKE scholars dealing with other areas of the European or j American past, Central European historians have been slow V.y to interest themselves in quantitative methods. Despite an undercurrent of statistical work, the diplomatic and intellectual preoccupation of the German tradition of has mitigated against the development of questions which might involve quantifiable answers.1 Many colleagues still share the notion that history is linguistic, not numerical and resent statistics as dehumanizing, like one respondent to a recent survey: I have always admired Livy because his figures are invariably wrong. figure that, if cannot work out the mathematics longhand, my readers won't be able to understand it either, so why bother.2 Hence it is no accident that none ofthe Europeanist pioneers of quantitative methods, such as Lawrence Stone or Charles Tilly, work in German history. But the impressive results ofthe new tools in other fields,3 the impetus of comparative studies involving Central European materials,4 the renewal of interest in social or structural history, the in? creasing preoccupation with theories, and the opening towards the so? cial sciences have gradually attracted younger scholars to quantification.5