econcrit: Google Scholar search-by-date

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Google Scholar search-by-date

When I restrict the dates for a Google search, sometimes Google finds the wrong date in search items. For example in Google Scholar just now I searched the phrase political economy in disarray for the years 1750-1775. The search turned up 4 results. The first of them opened to "Chapter Four: The Early National Period: 1775-1815" by Peter P. Hill, from the book A Companion to American Foreign Relations, published in 2008. The chapter title was probably the source for the date Google Scholar used in response to my request.

Second of the four results was "A Language for the Nation: A Transatlantic Problematic", a chapter from the book Revolutionary Histories presented by Springer Nature. The page presents an Abstract which begins with the words "Early in the 1750s, Scotsmen Adam Smith and John Stevenson were lecturing on rhetoric..." That sentence was probably the source for the date.

Third was "The Policy of Rome towards the English-Speaking Catholics in British North America (1750-1830)" by Luca Codignola. This appears to be chapter 5 from the book Creed and Culture, on offer by De Gruyter. The only date I saw for that item was in the title.

And fourth of four, a PDF titled "The Materiality of Death". On the title page, below the title this one says "BAR International Series 1768" and below that, the date 2008.

All four were results reported for the period 1750-1775. Hey, I'm not complaining. This is my hobby, my idea of fun and relaxation. But I want to advise caution, for you and me both, against blind faith in date-related search results from Google Scholar -- and from Google Ngrams, and perhaps other Google services.

It's not a total waste. I'm looking for things that strike me as interesting. And by the time I got to the years 1800-1825 my search turned up the Google Book General introduction to Statistical Accounts of Upper Canada, published in 1822. Yeah, not interesting, but at least the date is good.

The 1900-1925 search turned up the Google Book Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times by Thorstein Veblen, copyright 1923. It contains one use of the word "disarray" which doesn't serve my purpose, but now at least I can say I've read a little Veblen.

Another from that search is another Google Book: The Theory of the High Cost of Living, by Michail Osipovič Kefeli, translated from the Russian, published in 1923. The blurb for the search result said:

… None of the classical works on political economy pay any serious attention to the question … Only such gigantic blunders can explain the unprecedented economic disarray, which we …

Jackpot. I'm interested. The first fragment of that blurb led to this, from page 9:

Laws against speculation are a complete novelty. The law codes beginning with the Roman one contain no mention of speculation. On the contrary the laws of all the States recognize the right of the owner to dispose of his goods at his own price.

None of the classical works on political economy pay any serious attention to the question of speculation; on the contrary economics as a science teach us that the prices and profits cannot be raised in accordance with the merchants' wishes, but are regulated exclusively by the relation between demand and production.

Evidently speculation is either a new scientific discovery of our days or it is a phenomenon, which has just only made its appearance.

I like it. So next I read the opening:

The high cost of living, which has spread throughout the world, has turned in Russia into an overwhelming famine and in Sovdepia (the land of bolshevism) into a nightmare with all the horrors of cannibalism and desperate mortality, exceeding all ever existant wars and epidemics. This frightful calamity took humanity by surprise, as a storm overtakes a thoughtless traveller ...

and then the conclusion:

But all this does not demolish the high cost of living and the endless miseries of the population. The idea that it is necessary to introduce some improvements however insignificant, into capitalistic regime, for example limiting the consumption to certain normal standards and opposing the speculation, are so deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sorts, that it is doubtful, whether the State will have the courage to revert to the old economic policy existing up to now throughout the world; all the more as this idea is continually strengthened by half rations, mad rise of prices, the authoritative statements of deceptive science and the general mystery which enshrouds the present situation.

Therefore we can but surmise, that that one, who will be called to lead the country from this enchanted circle, will not be a man of high ideals, but a such one, who will be ready to sacrifice the fantistic theoretical welfare of his subjects for the sake of the actual strengthening of his power.

Anyway, here's what I wanted to see: