The future of cliometric history — a European view

Abstract

When the First World Congress of the Cliometrics Society convened in Evanston in the summer of 1985 it initially seemed that a historical mark had been set, that this demanding form of economic history — now no longer so “New” — had begun to capture the world. But a second look suggested that this dramatic view was wrong: most of the researchers present at that congress, including the “European economic historians,” were American and the overwhelming majority were native English speakers. This led me to consider some of the historical and institutional reasons for the slow diffusion of this form of research in Europe, especially in Germany, in a paper on the “Climacteric of Cliometrics?”¹ in which I was, nonetheless, optimistic about the future expansion of cliometrics in Germany and Europe in general.