ABSTRACT
Allan Bogue summarized the objections of historians to the movement for systematic quantifications, and then made a plea for the use of new “scientific” approaches to political history along with the more traditional ones. Practitioners of the new “scientific” or “behavioral” approach to history have not agreed on a detailed program nor on a theory of history. A small number of historians are trying to apply social-science methods and theory in American political history with varying degrees of rigor. The nine men who were early members of the American Historical Association’s ad hoc committee for the collection of the basic quantitative data of American political history, and others who have since become associated with the committee’s work in one way or another, are at the center of the movement. Much of the new quantitative history is unsophisticated in social-science terms.
