I have been looking at numbers in order to help finish my last chapter. I lack diaries, personal papers, or descriptive letters to give me a good sense of the population of which I am writing their history. I am fond of statistics as long as they do not get too cumbersome or obscure more than reveal. If incorporated into the narrative well, they do not distract and can cut through the anecdotal information. If a group of people believe they were X and of course everyone was on the same page about X, then some nice statistical data can be very enlightening. Sure, it can confirm that everyone was truly X, but what is more exciting, is when it reveals that well, some may have been doing X, but there were either just as many or more doing Y! Those are good days. Right now, not sure what I have. More sifting. More analysis.
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