Global History

Data & Statistics

This is a guide to topics in global history, focused on primary sources available at Boston College.

What's on This Page

This page has a lot on it. You can use the following anchors (links down the page) to jump straight to a relevant box.

Social History

Gapminder
Select world data from WHO, UN, World Bank, International Agency for Research on Cancer and others. Offers interactive visualizations.

Immigrations, Migrations and Refugees: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996 This link opens in a new window
From the archives of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency come government reports covering all aspects of global migration during much of the 20th-century, including such pivotal events as post-World War II Jewish resettlement, South African apartheid, Latin American migrations to the United States and much more. This digital archive captures translated and English-language radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals and government documents, along with analysis by the CIA predecessor agency.
International Historical Statistics This link opens in a new window
Statistical data from around the world (Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania) covering a wide range of socio-economic topics. This resource updates the latest print edition (2007) of International Historical Statistics. It includes 260 years of data, collected between 1750-2010, and offers the ability to compare by year or geographic region and to download data as an ePDF or Excel file.

International Institute of Social History: Data Sets
Includes access to multiple data sets from different spaces around the globe, predominately focused on the 19th and 20th centuries, some older. Emphasizes social history with information on labor, wages, prices and more.

Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Provide quick and easy access to historical census data and demographic information. Creates maps and reports to help users visually analyze and understand demography and social change throughout history. Includes the U.S. Census from 1790–2000 and all annual updates from the American Community Survey.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Provides quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and more. Includes multiple researcher generated datasets with historical information available for download as XML (as XLSX) files.

Genealogy

Ancestry Library Edition This link opens in a new window
With 7 billion genealogical records from across the globe and millions of family trees, this is the world’s largest online family history resource.

US Data & Statistics

American FactFinder
Population, housing, and income data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
The authoritative numerical history of the United States.

ICPSR
Use search terms indicating education level of study such as elementary, high school, secondary education, adult education, colleges etc. Narrow search by using additional search terms such as: trends, curriculum, academic achievement, testing, environment, parental influence

PolicyMap This link opens in a new window
PolicyMap is a GIS tool for non-GIS users." PolicyMap is used as a data visualization tool in the social sciences, urban studies and planning, real estate and housing analysis, community and economic development, public administration and policy, public health, political science, education, environmental studies, business and finance, economics, statistics and geography, among other areas. Downloadable data.
Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Currently includes the entire US Census history from 1790 to 2000, all annual updates from the American Community Survey. Users can customize, save, print, and email maps and reports and export them to a variety of programs and statistical packages for further analysis and use in reports and presentations.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Provides quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and more. Includes multiple researcher generated datasets with historical information available for download as XML (as XLSX) files.

Data Database Recommendations

Our World in Data
A database of data databases. Global coverage as available. Temporal coverage depends on topic, which include population, health, energy, environment, growth and inequality, education, politics.
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Created by Max Roser, economist, Oxford University and staff.

Economic Data: Currency & Exchange

Handbook of World Exchange Rates, 1590-1914 by Markus A. Denzel
Publication Date: 2010
As a world economy emerged from the 16th-17th centuries onwards, a global cashless payment system arose. This had its base in Europe, first in Italy, then in the rising regions of the north-west, with Amsterdam and then London as the central financial market.

Maddison Project
Continuing the work of Angus Maddison, offers estimates of world economic growth (GDP per capita) 1995-2014 CE.
Total Economy Database
GDP, population, employment, productivity, and more for 123 countries from 1950–present. Formerly from the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, and now maintained by the Conference Board.

Economic History: Commodities & Trade

Economic History (EH) Association: Databasess
Mostly historical US datasets, some. European, including "U.S. Customs House Data, 1854-59" and "Cole monthly commodity prices, 1700-1861" and others.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Publications on the availability of food products from the 1950s to the present.
ILOSTAT: Statistics on international labour migration
Includes data on multiple different countries recorded data on labor migration from 2000 onwards.
USDA: Foreign Agricultural Service
United States Department of Agriculture provides recent data sets on agricultural production and food around the world.
World Inequality Database
Database of the world's historical and current distribution of wealth and incomes within and between countries. Data included comes from national accounts, survey data, fiscal data, wealth rankings. Temporal coverage depends on topic, some sets beginning in the 1950s others in the 1990s.
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Coordinated by an executive committee of five co-directors from the Paris School of Economics and University of California Berkeley, with assistance from World Inequality Lab.

Digital Scholarship

The term 'digital humanities' implies the application of new technology to various humanities disciplines, especially to aid in new directions of research or to add new speed, accuracy, or collaboration not otherwise possible.

It can include analysis across a large corpus of text, application of geographic information systems to a set of data, visualization techniques to illustrate material in a new way, or many other possible tools and practices.

The Libraries' Digital Scholarship group is tasked with exploring and supporting this work at Boston College.

More Data Resources

The databases listed here are just the beginning of our statistical and spatial data collections. See the Digital Scholarship Portal for a more complete list.

O'Neill Library

Bapst Library

Burns Library

Educational Resource Center

Law Library

Social Work Library

Theology & Ministry Library

O'Connor Library

Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

Global History

Data & Statistics

What's on This Page

Social History

Genealogy

US Data & Statistics

Data Database Recommendations

Economic Data: Currency & Exchange

Economic History: Commodities & Trade

Digital Scholarship

More Data Resources