The (very) recent rise of quantitative analysis in history of economics working papers calls for a closer examination of the prospects and limitations of this approach, and of the impediment to its large-scale development. The use of bibliometrics to identify trends may be fostered by the realization that recasting historical claims in charts and figures facilitates online dissemination and conversation with economists. The spread of text-mining and network analysis techniques to answer more complex questions on dissemination, dominance, fragmentation, and field dynamics will require a more active move toward systematic training and the establishment of scientific and publishing standards, as will the development of new databases. The use of econometric techniques to test causal claims on the history of the discipline is nowhere to be seen, presumably because historians of economics are not willing to engage in methodological debates on the status of their objects and of their scientific practices.
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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