Empire, World, and Numbers: Making History Countable

This text provides an in-depth analysis of the work of Angus Maddison, a pioneer of historical statistics whose work revolutionized the quantitative approach to economic history. The author goes beyond simple GDP calculations, examining the foundations of modern economic thinking through the prism of imperial surplus extraction and the evolution of fiscal systems. The article provides a detailed discussion of the development trajectories of China, India, and Japan, contrasting them with Western models of modernization. A key theme is the origins of political arithmetic and biopolitics, stemming from the work of 17th-century thinkers such as William Petty. This study examines how numbers became a tool for understanding global historical processes and managing human resources on a macroeconomic scale.