Showing papers in "Social History in 1979"

First steps in literacy: The reading and writing experiences of the humblest seventeenth‐century spiritual autobiographers

Abstract: The spiritual autobiographies of the seventeenth century include the first subjective accounts, written by men from the countryside from yeoman parentage or below, of childhood, education, the importance of literacy and the importance that their religious convictions had for them. They therefore contain first-hand accounts, or rather fragments of accounts, of the amount of education available, and its effects, by the relatively humble. They thus provide insight into the effects of literacy which is not provided by any other source. There are very, very few of these accounts, and those which do exist suffer from the disadvantage of the genre. The spiritual autobiographers were Puritans and dissenters,' and therefore were socially slanted in whatever way Puritans and dissenters were socially slanted. They must also be considered even more a-typical than Puritans and dissenters in general, because the urge to write autobiography in itself defines an exceptional man.2

Money, land and lineage: The big bourgeoisie of Hanoverian London

Abstract: (1979). Money, land and lineage: The big bourgeoisie of Hanoverian London. Social History: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 437-454.

R. A. Slaney, the industrial town, and early Victorian social policy

Abstract: (1979). R. A. Slaney, the industrial town, and early Victorian social policy. Social History: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 85-101.

The role of state violence in the period of transition to industrial capitalism: The example of Prussia from 1815 to 1848∗

Abstract: (1979). The role of state violence in the period of transition to industrial capitalism: The example of Prussia from 1815 to 1848. Social History: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 175-221.

Peasant revolts in the German empire in the late middle ages

Abstract: (1979). Peasant revolts in the German empire in the late middle ages. Social History: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 223-239.

The imaginary universality of particular interests’: The ‘tradition’ of the civil service in German history

Abstract: This essay started life as part of a joint discussion of the status of the army and the bureaucracy in imperial Germany.' The choice of this partnership was not, of course, arbitrary. Both institutions have enjoyed an equivalent historical visibility: they shared the centre of the Prussian stage for a century or so before I848; they presided over and eventually symbolized the achievement of German unification; and ultimately they suffered a common eclipse of their inherited character in the course of the slow disintegration of that unity after I9I8. The aim of this original discussion was twofold. On the one hand, we wanted to explore the relationship between the two institutions and the conceptual contents with which they have frequently been filled in association with the Prusso-German state, namely army/militarism, and bureaucracy/authoritarianism. The second purpose was to venture some comments on the debate on continuity in post-Bismarckian German history a debate itself now so long-running that it might almost stand as a candidate for the same treatment.2 Clearly, these two issues are closely related, for they raise from different angles similar questions about the chronicity of institutions and ideologies. As I shall argue in this essay, the concept of 'the civil service' in German historiography seems to have achieved an extraordinary degree of autonomy from its historical actuality far more so than in the case of the army. Among its other effects, this emancipation from the concrete has contributed to the consolidation of an exposition of the Nazi state in terms of rather static institutional relations, which I have

Economic power and political stability reconsidered: Heavy industry in Weimar Germany

Abstract: (1979). Economic power and political stability reconsidered: Heavy industry in Weimar Germany. Social History: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 241-263.

The history of the family as an affective unit

Abstract: Jacques Donzelot, La Police des Families (1977), 220 (Editions de Mimiit, Paris, 35F). (The Policing of Families). Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (1977), xviii+230 (Basic Books, New York, $12.95). Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (1977), xxxi+800 (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £16.00).

The rural bourgeoisie of the southern Massif‐Central: A contribution to the study of the social structure of ancien régime France

Abstract: The debate on the origins of the French Revolution encouraged much retrospective analysis of the social structure of ancien regime France.' Researchers were urged, in particular, to place the pre-revolutionary bourgeoisie under the microscope in an attempt to determine its internal structure and distinguishing characteristics. Although a number of highly satisfying individual studies were completed, the results were generally disappointing: lines of social demarcation remained blurred. The bourgeois' entity'could not be brought into focus or at least not in accordance with the economic and professional criteria suggested by the original sponsors. Some historians doubted the validity of the whole exercise and perceived in it a desire to graft on to the ancien regime the ideological terminology and categories of the revolution. Alfred Cobban was one of the sceptics and in a series of attacks he criticized the orthodoxies of revolutionary historiography and proposed his own interpretation instead. The concept of a 'rural bourgeoisie' attracted particular suspicion and taking Georges Lefebvre as his text, Cobban denied that the term had any descriptive value.2 Worse, the collection of grands fermiers, laboureurs, rentiers, merchants, notaries, doctors, officers of local courts, etc., whom Lefebvre and others lumped together as a 'rural bourgeoisie', contained mutually hostile elements and to aggregate them thus was to raise a barrier to realistic social analysis. Whilst not seeking to defend Lefebvre's definition to the letter, this article will endeavour to show that in certain regions at least the term 'rural bourgeoisie' accurately

An approach to historical demography in Germany

Abstract: The author describes a research project in historical demography which is based on parish records for the area around Giessen the Federal Republic of Germany (ANNOTATION)

The study of urban crime

Abstract: Ted Robert Gurr, Rogues, Rebels, and Reformers. A Political History of Urban Crime and Conflict (1977), xii+192 (Sage, Beverly Hills and London, £7.50)