The Power of Large Numbers
Subtitle: Population, Politics, and Gender in Nineteenth-Century France
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: March 24, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780801437014
Subjects: Central government policies; Cultural studies; European history: c 1750 to c 1900; European history: from c 1900 -; Population & demography; c 1700 to c 1800; c 1800 to c 1900; History - General History; France - History; Statistics; History: American; France; Demography; Europe - France; 19th century; History; Population; Population policy
First sentence: The belief that a strong and vigorous nation requires a large population has a peculiar history in modern France.
Description: "In this work of cultural history, Joshua Cole examines the course of French thinking and policymaking on population issues from the 1780s until the outbreak of the Great War. During these decades increasingly sophisticated statistical methods for describing and analyzing such topics as fertility, family size, and longevity made new kinds of aggregate knowledge available to social scientists and government officials.

Cole recounts how this information heavily influenced the outcome of debates over the scope and range of public welfare legislation. In particular, as the fear of depopulation grew, the state wielded statistical data to justify increasing intervention in family life and continued restrictions on the autonomy of women."--BOOK JACKET.