Quantitative History and Historical Numeracy

Margo Anderson

History Department

http://www.uwm.edu/~margo

Human Population Growth Timeline

Human Population Growth Timeline

Human Population Growth Timeline: Focusing in….

• 1456: Gutenberg Bible (Invention of movable type)

• 1492 Columbus’ “Discovery” of the New World

• ca 1500 Renaissance• 1517 Protestant Reformation• 1607: Founding of Virginia (Jamestown

Colony)• 1620-30: Founding of Plymouth Colony and

Massachusetts Bay

American Population Dynamics

Growth of the U.S Population

Growth in the Size of the House

Admitting States to the Union

The First Gerrymander, 1812

1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050VAR1

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ITF

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United States Fertility, 1800-2000 (White Women)

Homicide

Homicide rates in the US, 1950-2000

Circumstances

Weapons and Circumstances

Homicide in Europe over Time

• Homicide rates per 100,000 population in English counties and cities, 1200–1970. From Ted Robert Gurr, "Historical Trends in Violent Crime: A Critical Review of the Evidence," Crime and Justice 3 (1981): 313.

Homicide in Europe

• Long-term homicide rates per 100,000 population in Scandinavia and England, North and South. Calculated from Manuel Eisner, "Modernization, Self-Control and Lethal Violence: The Long-Term Dynamics of European Homicide Rates in Theoretical Perspective," British Journal of Criminology 41 (2001): 618–638.

Murder Rates in NYC and Los Angeles, 1800-2000

American and European Murder Rates

TABLE 1Estimates of European and American Murder Rates

Era Pre-1850 1850–2000

NYC murder rate 5 10

European murder rate 2.7 2.1

Sources: Estimated from Monkkonen, Murder in New York City, and Eisner, "Modernization, Self-Control and Lethal Violence."

Iraq War Civilian Deaths from Violence

US Military Iraq War Deaths, 2003-2008

Coalition Deaths, 2003-2010

To learn more…

• Take History 595, Quantitative Analysis of Historical Data

• Read Numbers!• Browse www.census.gov or United

Nations website, for example, http://www.unfpa.org/swp/ or http://esa.un.org/unpp/

• When you read a “quantitative” assessment, ask what it really means…