The two revolutions in economic history

This chapter compares the Cliometric Revolution of the 1960s with the current developments in the field with a quantitative analysis based on two databases, totalling more than 3,500 articles. First, we outline the slow diffusion of the Cliometric Revolution in the top economic history journals. Then we focus on the subset of economic history articles in thirteen major economics journals which put forward a revolutionary change in their research questions. The persistence studies look for the historical origins of current outcomes, the ‘non-economic outcomes studies’ extend the issues beyond the traditional boundaries of economics, towards sociology, anthropology, and political science. This Second Revolution started in few top American universities and it still is a niche movement, although quite successful in terms of citations. We end with some musings about the future. There might be a new synthesis, with scholars integrating a wider range of research questions or perhaps the field will splinter in three independent research streams.