Statistical practices have often been assumed as routine and prosaic, if not entirely value-neutral, activities of the modern state, and as more or less universal in nature across European and non-European countries. Yet, the recent STS literature reveals that the very content and exercise of these practices are deeply political, and that their evolution has taken different paths in different historical, political, and cultural settings. Colonial Authority and Statistics, a painstaking study of the statistical systems and censuses of the Government-General of Chosŏn (Korea) during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945), is most welcome since it represents one of the first and few empirical studies touching upon this interesting nexus between statistical practices and politics/power in a Korean context.
