How are economists and historians to explain what happened in history? What statistical inferences can be drawn from historical data? The authors believe that explanation in history can be identified with the problems of prediction in a probabilistic universe

One: ; 1: Economic Theory, Statistical Inference, and Economic History; 2: Statistical Inference and Historical Explanation; Two: ; 3: The Economics of Slavery in the Antebellum South; 4: Income Growth and Structural Change; 5: An Input-Output Approach to Evaluating British Industrial Production in the Late Nineteenth Century; Three: ; 6: A Polemical Postscript on Economic Growth