Numbers and Nationhood
Writing Statistics in Nineteenth-Century Italy

An innovative 1996 study of statistics in Risorgimento Italy, and their contribution to the national identity.

Silvana Patriarca (Author)

9780521462969, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 October 1996

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.61 kg

' … this important and intelligent book … is a vital contribution to the historiography of Italian nationalism … suggests ways in which the new cultural history and the more traditional social and political history can complement and enrich each other. In this respect, its importance also transcends the boundaries of the Italian peninsula.' Economic History Review

Numbers and Nationhood, first published in 1996, explores the Italian inflection of a Europe-wide phenomenon in the nineteenth century: the rise of statistics as a mode of representation in society. Silvana Patriarca examines the ideologies which informed the copious statistical literature produced between the 1820s, when statistical publications began to proliferate in the Italian states, and the 1870s, when a unified Italy entered a fully positivistic era. Her innovative study illuminates the relationship between the needs of an emerging nation and the uses to which statistics were put, generating a long-lasting image of Italy which nevertheless accentuated its internal territorial divisions. By examining the power of numerical representations, Numbers and Nationhood provides a fresh reading of the historiography of Risorgimento Italy and of positivism, bringing to the fore issues of science, ideology, and representation.

1. Introduction: the history of statistics between state making and objectifications
2. A science for 'civilized' countries: practitioners, audiences and theories of statistics, 1820s–50s
3. Statistical description: between epistemology and politics
4. Making public numbers: official statistics in the pre-unification monarchies
5. Building the nation's body: 'patriotic statistics' representation of Italy
6. The identity of the Italians, or the ambiguities of moral statistics
7. Representing the new nation (1861–71)
8. A nation of Communes in a Europe of nationalities: the statistical Congress of Florence
Epilogue: measurable and unmeasurable things.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]