States and Statistics in the Nineteenth Century Europe by Numbers

by Randeraad, Nico

• ISBN13: 9780719081422
• ISBN10: 0719081424
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-06-01
• Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR

Summary

In this vivid and fascinating study, Nico Randeraad describes the turbulent history of statistics in nineteenth-century Europe.The book is a truly European endeavour, analysing attempts to engineer the internationalisation of statistics in the age of nationalism. It deals not only with developments in the large states of Western Europe, but gives equal attention to small states (Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary) and to the declining Habsburg Empire and Tsarist Russia.Among the numerous initiatives that unfolded in the name of progress in nineteenth-century Europe, the international statistical movement was one of the most fascinating. Then, unlike today, statistics constituted a comprehensive science, which stemmed from the idea that society, just like nature, was governed by laws. In order to discover these laws, everything had to be counted, and what could be counted, could be solved: crime, poverty, suicide, prostitution, illness, and many other threats to bourgeois society. The statisticians, often trained as jurists, economists and doctors, saw themselves as pioneers of a better future. The book takes the reader along to nine international conferences organised by the statisticians, from the first held in Brussels in 1853 to the last held in Budapest in 1876, and tells how their boundless optimism was thwarted by the national interests and ambitions of European states, which did not care much for international statistics.Offering an original perspective on the tensions between universalism and the rise of the nation-state in the nineteenth century, this book will appeal to historians, statisticians, and social scientists in general.

Author Biography

Nico Randeraad is Lecturer in History and European Studies at Maastricht University.

Table of Contents

Introduction * 1. The first meeting: Brussels 1853 * 2. All the world’s a stage: Paris 1855 * 3. The expansion of Europe: Vienna 1857 * 4. On waves of passion: London 1860 * 5. The German phoenix: Berlin 1863 * 6. Nationalism unbounded: Florence 1867 * 7. Small gestures in a big world: The Hague 1869 * 8. ‘Sadder and wiser’: St Petersburg 1872 and Budapest 1876 * Afterword * Archives, published sources and bibliography * Index