"Cole's superb cultural study. . . . is eloquently written, meticulously researched, with comprehensive bibliography and informed graphs. . . his humanization of French demography is a model study for social, cultural, and gender studies and especially French 19th-century history."—Choice. October, 2000.
"Cole's exploration. . . is broadly cast. . . . an informative and thought-provoking addition to our knowledge of nineteenth-century France."—Dora Dumont, SUNY Oneonta. History: Reviews of New Books. Summer, 2000.
"Cole has produced a work of impressive scholarship. He has synthesized a vast array of material to produce a book that is worth reading by anyone with an interest in the human sciences or French history in the nineteenth century."—J. Rosser Matthews, University of Wisconsin—Madison. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol 37, No. 3, Summer 2001
"This book functions at different levels: it is a clear narrative of the history of statistics. . . it is an interesting approach to the cultural history of the science of the population in the nineteenth century, and it is a fresh approach to familiar issues using the governmentality literature developed over the past twenty years to explain how this science attempts to be a tool to understand groups and aggregates and defend individual rights. Furthermore it is a good read."—Bertrand Taithe, University of Manchester. French History, Vol. 16, No. 1.
"This book does not fit into an easily definable category: its auther cuts across different subfields and problematics—the history of statistics and family policy, in particular—to examine the way in which population studies, politics, and gender ideology intersected and interacted in nineteenth-century France. . . In his close reading of texts of French demography and statistics, Cole shows a great deal of skill and perception. . . He is convincing in arguing that we must pay attention to the contribution that quantitative population research made to the gendered articulation of new ideas of collective interests and social responsibility."—Silvana Patriarca, Fordham University. Journal of Modern History, 75:2, June 2003.
"The Power of Large Numbers is an original and well-researched contribution to our understanding of the language of numbers. Joshua Cole is especially helpful in showing how the rise of statistics affected women and the family in nineteenth-century France."—Mary Poovey, Director, Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge, New York University
"The Power of Large Numbers is an example of the way in which the methods of analysis characteristic of the new cultural history can be used to bring out new interpretations of already known materials and of how those interpretations can revise historians' views of a historical period. By reading the principal texts of the 19th century population analysis from a Foucauldian perspective that seeks the ways in which they construct knowledge, Cole is able to show the interrelationships between the development of statistical methods of population analysis, gender, and political concerns in 19th century France. This is an important contribution."—James Lehning, University of Utah
"In this provocative, intelligent, and eloquent book, Joshua Cole reminds us that facts do not simply reside in numbers. Overturning historians' frequent assumption that demography transcends ideology, Cole emphasizes instead the transformative power of numbers in the modern world—their use by social reformers and politicians to enable the intervention of the state in family life. This book is of crucial importance to anyone who wants to think more critically and self-consciously about the way we use statistics."—Mary Louise Roberts, Stanford University
"The Power of Large Numbers makes a real contribution to the ongoing scholarship on depopulation. Joshua Cole brings to the fore a significant body of primary material, places it in a rich historical context, and asks fresh questions of the total portrait. A valuable work."—Bonnie Smith, Rutgers University
