“In this original and instructive book, Libby Schweber puts the history of statistics in a new light by providing an institutional and sociological account which connects the development of statistics to a broader history of state expertise.”—Alain Desrosières, author of The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning “Libby Schweber addresses both the institutional conditions of scientific change and the actual forms of knowledge produced. And she convincingly rejects the usual teleology of disciplines as what scientific practitioners always want and advanced states always need. She shows how the assertion of a discipline can be a sign of weakness, of inability to shape policy, really a course of action when all else fails.”—Theodore M. Porter, author of Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life “Disciplining Statistics makes important contributions to our understanding of how a field of knowledge developed in France and England, and it may well be seen as a model comparative analysis based on research in public sources.”
Matthew Connelly
American Journal of Sociology
“[Schweber’s] work adds to a growing body of literature about the origins of the new social sciences in the nineteenth century, and their relationship to other sciences, the state, and public-policy formation. . . . The work is a closely argued, careful, and detailed reading of the organizational forms, intellectual debates, and scientific practices created by the men who defined, literally named, and built the new population sciences.”
Margo J. Anderson
Journal of Interdisciplinary History
“Schweber succeeds in terms of many of the goals she sets out at the beginning of her study. With the aid of an excellent opening historiographical survey in particular, we are reminded of the issues that divide scholars when it comes to discipline formation. Indeed, Schweber's own argument about how best to approach such subject matter offers many important insights for historians of science to consider.”
Chris Renwick
British Journal for the History of Science