Some British Empiricists in the Social Sciences, 1650-1900

These lectures focus on twelve pioneers of economic, demographic and social statistics ranging from the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. The first lecture discusses the work of the political arithmeticians including William Petty, Founding Fellow of the Royal Society. The second lecture considers three steps in the development of quantitative economics in the form of Bishop Fleetwood, Arthur Young and Patrick Colquhoun. In the third lecture Stone turns to demography...