Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The history of population has long been of interest to historians and demographers. Historical writings were used to estimate the population of the Roman Empire, of China, and of the world over time. Local historians used monthly numbers of burials and baptisms in parish records to ascertain the effect of epidemics or food crises. Starting in the mid-1950s, the work of the French demographer Louis Henry is generally credited for initiating a new discipline, historical demography, based this time not only on the careful accounting of vital events at the aggregate level, but also on the nominal linking of records. This became an essential tool of historians, and the appellation “historical demography” is often reserved for that auxiliary branch of history that deals with the quantitative aspects of past populations, whereas “demographic history” deals with more substantive aspects. Adopting a more inclusive definition, historical demography is the discipline that studies the structure and the evolution of populations of the past for which written sources exist, and the determinants and consequences of population trends over time, both at the individual and at the aggregate level. This definition is broad enough to encompass literary sources or historical accounts (e.g., on the history of contraception), or medical or epidemiological evidence (e.g., on the history of disease). “The ... log in or subscribe to read full text