Starting from three recent publications (a handbook, a conference proceeding, and an editedvolume), this article discusses the limited use of quantitative methods among historians,especially in the Italian context, despite the widespread debate about digital history andhistorical “big data”. After the great promises made between the 1960s and the 1980s and theopposite trend of the following twenty years, the spread of personal computers and the greatdiversification and refinement of methods have allowed for direct and experimental uses ofquantitative analysis, even on a small corpus of data or in a micro-historical perspective. Awidespread quantitative training would provide a strengthening of historians’ reflexive andinterpretative skills.
Keywords: Quantitative methods, Historiography, Statistics