By itself, the statement ‘quantitative history does not exist’ (Floud, 1977) is riddled with issues, predominantly the fact that as a methodology, a quantitative approach has been implemented in all areas of history. Taken out of context, the opening comment from Floud gives the impression of ignorance, but this is not the case. In reality, Floud is an advocator of quantitative methods of historical analysis, just not isolation. His leading argument surrounds the insistence that quantitative methodologies are only of use when considered in and alongside contexts such as agency, emotion, and culture and not as a field in itself. With this in mind, it seems, therefore, that quantitative history both exists, and does not exist.
Interpreting statistical evidence in isolation is doomed to failure, as demonstrated by Fogel and Engerman’s infamously ill-fated investigation of the economic viability of American slavery. For decades, the academic world has stressed the importance of the individual, condemning the reduction of lived experience to numbers and tables. Quantitative history encourages the fall into traps of colonialising history and producing ahistorical narratives. However, Time on the Cross demonstrates the extremes of abusing quantitative methodologies; across all historical enquiry, some form of demography, prosopography or psephology will likely persevere, but must be acknowledged in a diverse and inclusive context to provide an invaluable additional dimension to historical analysis, and establish more in-depth conclusions of the past.
To translate this tangled web of Schrodinger’s method of historical analysis, it is worth looking at how quantitative history fits into the study of migration in the 19th century. Economic push and pull factors are often perceived to be the dominating force of migration, with records on employment, marriage, birth, and death being central to determining how many people migrated and why. This information is significant as it demonstrates the overwhelming influence of the changing economy and some of the impact of the industrial revolution on a large scale. However, much is lost in this analysis. With agency, emotion and the lived experience of the individual being disregarded, the colonialization which plagues historical narrative threatens to permanently damage Digital Humanities. Ignoring elements such as these is outright ahistorical, leading to the development of inaccurate, exclusive, and one-dimensional conclusions. How can the subsequent developments of integration, marginalised communities and sub-cultures be understood without the consideration of agency or emotion? As with all historical study the causes and consequences of movement between hemispheres, countries and cities cannot by gleaned from statistics alone.
A study of statistics alone is not only useless but detrimental to scholarship, tainting perception and limiting understanding of the historical record, condemning historical actors to the obscurity of the past. Floud was right to say that, as an independent form of history, quantitative history does not exist. Instead there is something of an omnipresent methodology of source use and analysis which complements qualitative history in all its forms and lacks purpose in isolation.
Digital Humanities 