4 - Historical Background of Quantitative Social Science

Summary

QUANTIFICATION AND THE RISE OF THE WEST

The origins of quantification in social thought reach far back into history. Numbers are found in the classical Greek texts as well as in traditional Indian, Chinese, and Islamic texts, but the sort of quantitative analysis that we are particularly interested in is a European invention that has flourished in the past few centuries and whose roots go back to the Middle Ages. I'll be referring to an interesting work by Alfred Crosby (1997), who asks, why do we count, and do Europeans count differently from everybody else? Did they start at a different time than everybody else, and if so, why? Crosby studies quantification in Western society from 1250 to 1600, and he incidentally sheds light on another of the great debates in history: Why did Europe conquer or expand over the rest of the world? It should not have occurred. Europe in 1500 was not the wealthiest area in the world, nor was it the most advanced area economically, nor did it have the most advanced technology at the time. It was in fact a relatively backward zone of world civilization. Nonetheless, Europeans conquered the world's sea lanes and became the dominant world powers until the twentieth century. Europeans did not merely touch on areas of the world unknown to them and then move on. After all, the Chinese had junks trading on the East African coast long before the Portuguese reached the West African coast.