Comparative historical research

About: Comparative historical research is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3658 publications have been published within this topic receiving 55476 citations.

Protecting soldiers and mothers : the political origins of social policy in the United States

Abstract: It is generally believed that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda Skocpol shows in this historical analysis, the United States actually pioneered generous social spending for many of its elderly, disabled and dependent citizens. During the late 19th century, competitive party politics in American democracy led to the rapid expansion of benefits for Union Civil War veterans and their families. Some Americans hoped to expand veterans' benefits into pensions for all of the needy elderly and social insurance for workingmen and their families. But such hopes went against the logic of political reform in the Progressive era. Generous social spending faded along with the Civil War generation. Instead, the U.S. nearly became a unique maternalist welfare state as the federal government and more than 40 states enacted social spending, labour regulations, and health education programmes to assist American mothers and children. As Skocpol shows, many of these policies were enacted even before American women were granted the right to vote. Banned from electoral politics, they turned their energies to creating huge, nation-spanning federations of women's clubs, which collaborated with reform-minded professional women to spur legislative action across the country. Blending original historical research with political analysis, Skocpol shows how governmental institutions, electoral rules, political parties and earlier public policies combined to determine both the opportunities and the limits within which social policies were devised and changed by reformers and politically active social groups over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time

Abstract: Introduction, by Keith TribePart I: On the Relation of Past and Future in Modern History Chapter 1 Modernity and the Planes of HistoricityChapter 2 Historia Magistra Vitae: The Dissolution of the Topos into the Perspective of a Modernized Historical ProcessChapter 3 Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of RevolutionChapter 4 Historical Prognosis in Lorenz von Stein s Essay on the Prussian ConstitutionPart II Theory and Method of the Historical Determination of Time Chapter 5 Begriffsgeschichte and Social HistoryChapter 6 History, Histories, and Formal Time StructuresChapter 7 Representation, Event, and StructureChapter 8 Chance as Motivational Trace in Historical WritingChapter 9 Perspective and Temporality: A Contribution to the Historiographical Exposure of the Historical WorldPart III Semantic Remarks on the Mutation of Historical Experience Chapter 10 The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric CounterconceptsChapter 11 On the Disposability of HistoryChapter 12 Terror and Dream: Methodological Remarks on the Experience of Time during the Third Reich Third ReichChapter 13 Neuzeit : Remarks on the Semantics of Modern Concepts of MovementChapter 15 Space of Experience and Horizon of Expectation : Two Historical CategoriesNotes

The Function of General Laws in History

Abstract: 1. It is a rather widely held opinion that history, in contradistinction to the so-called physical sciences, is concerned with the description of particular events of the past rather than with the search for general laws which might govern those events. As a characterization of the type of problem in which some historians are mainly interested, this view probably can not be denied; as a statement of the theoretical function of general laws in scientific historical research, it is certainly unacceptable. The following considerations are an attempt to substantiate this point by showing in some detail that general laws have quite analogous functions in history and in the natural sciences, that they form an indispensable instrument of historical research, and that they even constitute the common basis of various procedures which are often considered as characteristic of the social in contradistinction to the natural sciences.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Abstract: THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE: WHY VIOLENCE HAS DECLINED. Steven Pinker, Penguin, New York, NY 2011. ISBN 978-0-670-02295-3.There's been a shooting in a Sikh Temple this morning. A lone gunman entered a Colorado theater and opened fire. Syrians are now engaged in civil war. Faced with daily news stories of death and destruction, it is easy to believe that things are getting worse. Not so, explains Harvard psychologist, Steven Pinker in his new work, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined.Pinker combines in-depth historical research with rigorous psychological research to argue the case for a decline in global violence. As Pinker aptly points out, many people look at our age as one of unprecedented violence and terror to be viewed with pessimism. Drawing on historical analysis, psychological research and findings from related sciences such as anthropology, sociology, and economics Pinker argues that the data paint a very different picture. In the first chapter, Pinker takes the reader on a quick journey through the history of the world pointing out that the ancient and medieval worlds were very different than the world we live in today. Numerous prehistoric skeletons bear evidence of very violent deaths. Ancient people destroyed entire tribes. Romans carried out violent executions. Medieval Knights led lies of violence and other Europeans meted out horrendous punishments for acts which might not even be judged worthy of condemnation in today's democracies. Finally, the early 20th century saw two World Wars before the long peace ensued. In light of that history, Pinker argues that perhaps we should reconsider our assumptions about our own world.In the first section of the book, Pinker identifies six historical trends which could have led to declines in violence. The first trend he calls the Pacification Process by which people gave up nomadic hunting and gathering lives for lives of agriculture in cities. Competition and anarchy in the prehistoric world made violence necessary for survival. The development of agriculture called for greater cooperation between individuals and the formation of governments to impose order created a world where violence was not always in one's best interest. Statistical analysis supports the idea that the emergence of states lead to a decline in violence. The second trend, the Civilizing Process, is an idea he developed from the work of Norbert Elias. In the late medieval and early modern periods, etiquette and social norms began to be important in social interactions, economics and technology began to advance, and governments began to become more centralized. This trend was also accompanied by a decline in violence. The third trend is the Humanitarian Revolution during which people began to increasingly find practices, such as torture, capital punishment, war and slavery, morally questionable. Empathy, compassion, and peace became important characteristics. The fourth trend is the Long Peace, which stems from the realization that since World War II no two major world powers have gone to war and, in spite of predictions to the contrary, nuclear weapons have never been used. …

Children and childhood in western society since 1500

Abstract: Updated to incorporate recent scholarship on the subject, this new edition of Hugh Cunningham’s classic text investigates the relationship between ideas about childhood and the actual experience of being a child, and assesses how it has changed over the span of 500 years. Through his engaging narrative Hugh Cunningham tells the story of the development of ideas from the Renaissance to the present, revealing considerable differences in the way Western societies have understood and valued childhood over time. His survey of parent/child relationships uncovers evidence of parental love, care and, in the frequent cases of child death, grief throughout the period, concluding that there was as much continuity as change in the actual relations of children and adults across these five centuries. Since the book’s first publication in 1995, the volume of historical research on children and childhood has escalated hugely and is testimony to the level of concern provoked by the dominance of the negative narrative that originated in the 1970s and 1980s. A new epilogue revisits the volume from today’s perspective, analysing why this negative narrative established dominance in Western society and considering how it has affected historical writing about children and childhood, enabling the reader to put both this volume and recent debates into context. Supported by an updated historiographical discussion and expanded bibliography, Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500 remains an essential resource for students of the history of childhood, the history of the family, social history and gender history.