Quantification: Measuring Connections and Comparative Development in Global History

Many global historians do not use quantitative evidence and are sceptical towards the systematic use of numerical data to uncover general patterns in history. Yet as global history concerns itself with questions about the rise and declines of global connectivity and the comparative development of societies across the world, there are clear benefits to quantification. This chapter first reviews the evidence on global trade volumes and commodity prices to suggest that the process of globalisation was already happening during the early modern period. Second, it shows that the most recent evidence and estimates of total economic output and real wages point to an early divergence in comparative incomes between Europe and Asia starting prior to the 1700s. It is shown that historical quantitative data are fraught with difficulties, but that the evidence is constantly being improved upon, leading to an increasingly accurate picture of global connections and comparative incomes in global history. Such quantitative global history complements rather than substitutes qualitative historical research as many historical developments are difficult, if not impossible, to quantify.