Why the italian city-states were so prosperous

a historian researching the immigration policies of the early 1900s would expect a source written today,rather than in 1910 to :

( a ) be more interested in objective data and statistics.

because its important to learn about other countries and how high tech they are compared to us. also its good to learn about other cultures and how ours differs and in common also we need to learn about companies that we still buy since they ship it here.