Technology or methodology? Quantitative historical social research in Germany

Historical social research has developed with the availability of computer technology and has received increasing acceptance with the use of PCs. Methodological standards created by empirical social research are transferred to historical matters. Major contributors are: extension of the factual basis of history, correction of misjudgements, opening of whole groups of mass sources to historical research and bridging the gap between theory and empirical knowledge in the science of history. It complements a philosophical historiography without replacing it. In Germany historical social research has developed outside the traditional university institutes; the Zentrum fur Historische Sozialforschung and Quantum e.V. in Cologne are the major institutions in this context.Heinrich Best (D. Phil.) is a professor of sociology at the University of Cologne. He is director of the Social Science Information Centre (Bonn), director of the scientific advisory board of the Centre for Historical Social Research at his university, and president of the Association for Quantification and Formal Methods in Historical Social Research. Among his publications are Die Männer von Bildung and Besitz (1990) and Computers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (1991).