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Article: Political Empiricism and Early Political Economy: Gregory King's 1696 Estimates of National Wealth and Population.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- September 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Political Empiricism and Early Political Economy: Gregory King's 1696 Estimates of National Wealth and Population. By John A. Taylor. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005. Pp. x, 195. $84.95.)
The author of this book takes a long windup for his pitch: "[King's] are the best estimates available, and we are lucky to have them" (95). The criticisms from which he defends historical demographer Gregory King were chiefly those of Geoffrey Holmes. Holmes wrote that King's numbers were politically motivated and filled with inaccuracies. He criticized King for not being a Newton of demography; that is, not finding "clear laws and [calculating] precise values" (11). Evidently ...