New publication: « Global History of Quantification – how about China? »
A new publication (in French) by Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard with the title “Histoire globale de la quantification – et la Chine ?” appeared on the blog Histoires et Mesures of the journal Histoire & Mesure (EHESS).
It is the second in a series of Digital Re-editions, which, drawing on the digital resources of Histoire & Mesure offers selections of articles published since the birth of the journal in 1986, around themes revisited by the members of the editorial board.
Andrea Bréard’s contribution discusses two articles in the journal written by Chinese authors and observes the quasi absence of a history of quantification in the Chinese academic and sinologist landscape, in spite of the abundance of open avenues that remain to be explored outside European borders and the richness of the documentary field in China. The intertwining of China with foreign countries since the Opium Wars also allows to supplement sources and data from archives in China by so many others preserved elsewhere. She inquires about the state of the discipline of history of quantification in China during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and the 20th century. The lack of professionalization of the history of quantification, as Hernán Otero describes it for Latin America in his 2018 article on the Socio-History of Statistics on Latin America: A Review could be one reason.