Antecedents of Censuses From Medieval to Nation States, the first of two volumes, examines the influence of social formations on censuses from the medieval period through current times. The authors argue that relative influence of states and societies is probably not linear, but depends on the actual historical configuration of the states and societies, as well as the type of population information being collected. They show how information gathering is an outcome of the interaction between states and social forces, and how social resistance to censuses has frequently circumvented their...

Changes in Censuses from Imperialist to Welfare States, the second of two volumes, uses historical and comparative methods to analyze censuses or census-like information in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy, starting in England over one-thousand years ago. The authors argue that censuses arose from interactions between bureaucracies and social interests, and that censuses constituted public, official knowledge not where they were insulated from social pressures, but rather where there was intense social and political interaction around them.