The intention of this book is to give a picture of the complex material
that has been published in the field of social and econornic statistics
in Western Europe. Although there are many guides, bibliographies and
reference books on special topics of this broad theme, a general
overview has been missing. With this book I hope to fill this gap. The
frame of reference is a scientific one: enabling and facilitating
comparative social research on Western Europe. In some respect this book
enlarges and updates the bibliography written by Peter Flora,
"Quantitative Historical Sociology", pub- lished in "Current Sociology"
in 1975. In principle, this guide is an annotated bibli- ography of the
most important printed material in the field of official statistics. The
legitimacy of such an approach lies in the fact that even today printed
statistics are the most important form of dissemination of statistical
results, although microcom- puters, CD-ROMs and the Internet have
changed this situation. In any case, a spe- cial section on statistical
databases is included for every country, describing the main databases
of the statistical offices. Furthermore, the Internet address of each
international or national statistical institute is provided in the
introductory para- graph. This enables the reader to get fast access to
online databases and supple- mentary online information on statistics
via the Internet.