Dans les limbes de l’histoire économique

Abstract

In 2011, in The Poverty of Clio, Francesco Boldizzoni launched an open attack against cliometrics, a sub-discipline of economics which applies economic theory to past societies. In their introductive section, Christelle Rabier et Pierre Saint-Germier revisit the issues lying beneath the fierce controversy that erupted as a result, regarding the goals and methods of economic history, and the reasons of its non-reception in France. In the latter, as different methodological paths were trodden, cliometrics has remained a curiosity, as the contributors to this special issue suggest.

Keywords

• economic history
• cliometrics
• controversy
• science studies
• historical methodology