IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jhisec/v19y1997i01p114-126_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Origins of Malthus's Data on Population: The Political and Religious Biases in the American Sources

Author

Listed:
  • Peterson, Dean

Abstract

The importance of Thomas Robert Malthus's ratios has long been acknowledged. Combined with his use of population figures from America, they gave his first Essay on the Principle of Population the appearance of a scientific study backed by empirical evidence. Prominent economists such as David Ricardo, Nassau Senior, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, and Joseph A. Schumpeter credited the Essay with being a major work of science. Many scholars have claimed that the trappings of science contributed significantly to the persuasiveness of Malthus's view to his intended readers, who believed that human nature operated according to strict mechanical laws (Rashid 1987, p. 22).

Suggested Citation

  • Peterson, Dean, 1997. "The Origins of Malthus's Data on Population: The Political and Religious Biases in the American Sources," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 114-126, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:19:y:1997:i:01:p:114-126_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1053837200004703/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:19:y:1997:i:01:p:114-126_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/het .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.