Numbers Game or Scientific History? Exactitude and Justice in 1970s Cliometrics and in Digital History Today

By the time of the publication of Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman’s Time on the Cross in 1974, quantitative history had become an important, yet controversial, trend around the globe. Time on the Cross, an economic history of slavery in the American South, prompted a fierce debate among historians. The issue at stake was the use of quantitative methods and the role of computers in what was called “cliometrics.” Fogel and Engerman claimed that their monograph replaced the uncertainties of traditional, narrative history with hard scientific facts, verified by computers and mathematical techniques. But critics found outright errors in their use and interpretation of the quantitative data and pointed to the danger of dehumanizing the study of history if it is left to a machine. This essay retraces the debate and critically analyzes the promises of exactitude formulated in cliometric discourse in order to ask what lessons can be learned for the challenges digital humanities faces today.