British Empiricism and Early Political Economy

Focusing on the work of Gregory King, this book delves into his 1696 estimates of England's wealth and population, which have faced skepticism from historians. John A. Taylor defends King's integrity as a statistician, emphasizing that his calculations, based on the available data from 1688, were shaped by the challenges he encountered. By relying on empirical methods and basic arithmetic, Taylor contends that King's estimates were likely the most accurate possible for the 17th century, highlighting the complexities of historical data compilation.