ABSTRACT
The new brand of 'scientific' history, which I will call 'cliometrics', entered the historical lists during the 1950s. Although cliometricians are sometimes referred to as a 'school', the term is somewhat misleading since cliometrics encompasses many different subjects, viewpoints, and methodologies. The common characteristic of cliometricians is that they apply the quantitative methods and behavioral models of the social sciences to the study of history. The methods that traditional historians have developed for authenticating evidence were geared more to specific events involving specific individuals than to repetitive events involving large groups of individuals. Scientific historians have tended to concentrate on the analysis of roll calls and on quantifiable characteristics of legislators or their constituencies. The cliometric approach would be of some interest even if it merely confirmed what had already been discovered by traditional historiographic methods.
