The History of Quantification in History: The JIH as a Case Study

The use of quantitative methods in leading historical journals increased dramatically in the 1960s and declined sharply after the mid-1980s. The JIH is an invaluable source for analysis of the boom and bust in the use of quantitative methods in history; the journal remained under the same editors for almost fifty years and made no attempt to change editorial policies during that period. Shifting patterns of content and authorship in the JIH from the 1980s to the early 2000s reveal how the journal responded to a dramatic decline in quantitative submissions by U.S.-based historians. Recent years have seen a revival of quantification both in the JIH and in mainstream historical journals, especially among historians located at institutions outside the United States.