Showing papers on "Social history published in 2004"

The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications

Abstract: A history of the political roots of the information age, by one of this country's most distinguished intellectuals, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Social Transformation of American Medicine. America's leading role in today's information revolution may seem simply to reflect its position as the world's dominant economy and most powerful state. But by the early nineteenth century, when the United States was neither a world power nor a primary center of scientific discovery, it was already a leader in communications-in postal service and newspaper publishing, then in development of the telegraph and telephone networks, later in the whole repertoire of mass communications. In this wide-ranging social history of American media, from the first printing press to the early days of radio, Paul Starr shows that the creation of modern communications was as much the result of political choices as of technological invention. His original historical analysis reveals how the decisions that led to a state-run post office and private monopolies on the telegraph and telephone systems affected a developing society. He illuminates contemporary controversies over freedom of information by exploring such crucial formative issues as freedom of the press, intellectual property, privacy, public access to information, and the shaping of specific technologies and institutions. America's critical choices in these areas, Starr argues, affect the long-run path of development in a society and have had wide social, economic, and even military ramifications. The Creation of the Media not only tells the history of the media in a new way; it puts America and its global influence into a new perspective.

The History Of Education

Abstract: The Project Gutenberg EBook of THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, by ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.

Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes

Abstract: This vivid social history reveals the powerful role that cartographic projects such as exploration, surveying, and mapping played in the creation of modern Mexico in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Raymond B. Craib describes the varied and pervasive attempts by government officials to determine the lines and claims that would define the nation. These projects included the privatization of communal lands; the delineation and archiving of village, municipal, state, and national boundaries; and the determination of waterways and water rights. As Craib emphasizes, the everyday processes of these cartographic routines proved to be much more conflicted than is indicated by their end products: maps with unitary and smooth facades. Taking central Veracruz as a case in point, Craib shows how agrarian officials, military surveyors, and metropolitan geographers traversed "fugitive landscapes" of overlapping jurisdictions and use-rights, opaque tenure systems, confusing property regimes, ambiguous borders, and shifting place names. He draws on an array of sources--including maps, letters from campesinos, official reports, and surveyors' journals and correspondence--to trace the everyday, contested processes through which officials attempted to redefine and codify these landscapes in struggle with the villagers they encountered in the field. In the process, he demonstrates in meticulous detail how surveying and mapping were never mere technical procedures: they were--and remain to this day--profoundly social and political processes in which rural people, long ignored in the history of cartography, were actively involved.

Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Essays on Gender, Family and Empire

Abstract: Book synopsis: "Manliness and Masculinities "presents an innovative series of studies in the cultural and social history of nineteenth-century Britain. The book documents the rapid emergence of a new and increasingly important field, and takes forward the definition of this new field. John Tosh addresses the big issues of theory and periodisation, exploring the relationship between masculinity and patriarchy, and between men's public role and their emotional and domestic lives. These insights inform his sensitive treatment of the history of the Victorian family. In the final section of the book John Tosh re-examines some of the major themes of British imperial history, arguing that the empire needs to be seen as a specifically male enterprise answering to masculine aspirations and insecurities. The history of masculinity does not deal with a neglected group. It potentially modifies our view of every field of history in which men are the principal subject-matter ? most of written history. History is still predominantly about men, and this book shows what a difference it makes to our understanding of history to put their masculinity under scrutiny. This book is essential reading for students, teachers and researchers in the history of the family and of the British Empire, as well as Gender Studies.

The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of Social History and the Brothel

Abstract: In recent years, a number of classical scholars have turned their attention to prostitution in the ancient world. Close examination of the social and legal position of Roman meretrices and Greek hetairai have enriched our understanding of ancient sexual relationships and the status of women in these societies. These studies have focused, however, almost exclusively on the legal and literary evidence. McGinn approaches the issues from a new direction, by studying the physical venues that existed for the sale of sex, in the context of the Roman economy. Combining textual and material evidence, he provides a detailed study of Roman brothels and other venues of venal sex (from imperial palaces and privates houses to taverns, circuses, and back alleys) focusing on their forms, functions, and urban locations. The book covers the central period of Roman history, roughly from 200 B.C. to A.D. 250. It will especially interest social and legal historians of the ancient world, and students of gender, sexuality, and the family. Thomas A. J. McGinn is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Vanderbilt University.

What Is History?: And Other Essays

Abstract: In five essays, including three on historiography, one of the greatest minds in English political thought in the twentieth century explores themes central to the human experience: the nature of history, the rule of law, and the quest for power that is intrinsic to the human condition. Michael Oakeshott believed, as Timothy Fuller observes, that "the historian's effort to understand the past without ulterior motive [is the] effort which distinguishes the historian as historian from all who examine the past for the guidance they expect it to provide about practical concerns."

Practicing History : New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn

Abstract: Introduction: Practicing History, Theorizing Practice Part 1: Discourse and the Problem of Social History Part 2: Self and Agency Part 3: Experience and Practice

Ethnische Interpretationen in der frühgeschichtlichen Archäologie: Geschichte, Grundlagen und Alternativen

Abstract: This volume analyses previous attempts to delineate ethnic groupings with the help of archaeological finds. After a short review of the history of these interpretations, central concepts are examined (people, culture, race, language) and ethnological and sociological concepts of identity are adduced. Against this background, Brather undertakes a comparative description of the methodological problems of ethnic reconstructions for the period between the Iron Age and the Middle Ages, and contrasts them with interpretations from cultural, economic and social history as alternative approaches to an explanation which is closer to the sources. This structural historical analysis places the explanatory power of archaeological sources on a footing with those of literary texts.

My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism

Abstract: How do you decide what is a 'story' and what isn't? What does a newspaper editor actually do all day? How do hacks get their scoops? How do the TV stations choose their news bulletins? How do you persuade people to say those awful, embarassing things? Who earns what? How do journalists manage to look in the mirror after the way they sometimes behave? The purpose of this insider's account is to provide an answer to all these questions and more Andrew Marr's brilliant, and brilliantly funny, book is a guide to those of us who read newspapers, or who listen to and watch news bulletins but want to know more Andrew Marr tells the story of modern journalism through his own experience This is an extremely readable and utterly unique modern social history of British journalism, with all its odd glamour, smashed hopes and future possibility

The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia: A New History

Abstract: The modern states of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and East Timor were once a tapestry of kingdoms, colonies, and smaller polities linked by sporadic trade and occasional war By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the United States and several European powers had come to control almost the entire region - only to depart dramatically in the decades following World War II The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia offers a new and up-to-date perspective on this complex region Although it does not neglect nation-building (the central theme of its popular and long-lived predecessor, In Search of Southeast Asia), the present work focuses on economic and social history, gender, and ecology It describes the long-term impact of global forces on the region and traces the spread and interplay of capitalism, nationalism, and socialism It acknowledges that modernization has produced substantial gains in such areas as life expectancy and education but has also spread dislocation and misery Organizationally, the book shifts between thematic chapters that describe social, economic, and cultural change, and "country" chapters emphasizing developments within specific areas Enhanced by scores of illustrations, The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia will establish a new standard for the history of this dynamic and radically transformed region of the world

Life after death : a history of the afterlife in the religions of the West

Abstract: Publisher's description: A magisterial work of social history, Life After Death illuminates the many different ways ancient civilizations grappled with the question of what exactly happens to us after we die. In a masterful exploration of how Western civilizations have defined the afterlife, Alan F. Segal weaves together biblical and literary scholarship, sociology, history, and philosophy. A renowned scholar, Segal examines the maps of the afterlife found in Western religious texts and reveals not only what various cultures believed but how their notions reflected their societies' realities and ideals, and why those beliefs changed over time. He maintains that the afterlife is the mirror in which a society arranges its concept of the self. The composition process for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam begins in grief and ends in the victory of the self over death

Feminist History of Colonial Science

Abstract: This essay offers a short overview of feminist history of science and introduces a new project into that history, namely feminist history of colonial science. My case study focuses on eighteenth-century voyages of scientific discovery and reveals how gender relations in Europe and the colonies honed selective collecting practices. Cultural, economic, and political trends discouraged the transfer from the New World to the Old of abortifacients (widely used by Amerindian and African women in the West Indies).1

Sport and National Identity in the Post-War World

Abstract: What is the relationship between sport and national identity? What can sport tell us about changing perceptions of national identity? Bringing together the work of established historians and younger commentators, this illuminating text surveys the last half-century, giving due attention to the place of sport in our social and political history. It Includes studies of: · English football and British decline · Englishness and sport · Ethnicity and nationalism in Scotland · Social change and national pride in Wales · Irish international football and Irishness · Sport and identity in South Africa · Cricket and identity crisis in the Caribbean · Baseball, exceptionalism and American Sport · Popular mythology surrounding the sporting rivalry between New Zealand and Australia Sport and National Identity in the Post-War World presents a wealth of original research into contemporary social history and provides illuminating material for historians and sociologists alike.

The Origins of the British Welfare State: Society, State and Social Welfare in England and Wales, 1800-1945

Abstract: Over the last 200 years Britain has witnessed profound changes in the nature and extent of state welfare Drawing on the latest historical and social science research The Origins of the British Welfare State looks at the main developments in the history of social welfare provision in this period It looks at the nature of problems facing British society in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries and shows how these provided the foundation for the growth of both statutory and welfare provision in the areas of health, housing, education and the relief of poverty It also examines the role played by the Liberal government of 1906-14 in reshaping the boundaries of public welfare provision and shows how the momentous changes associated with the First and Second World Wars paved the way for the creation of the 'classic' welfare state after 1945 This comprehensive and broad-ranging yet accessible account encourages the reader to question the 'inevitability' of present-day arrangements and provides an important framework for comparative analysis It will be essential reading for all concerned with social policy, British social history and public policy

A bird in the bush: a social history of birdwatching

Abstract: Scholarly, authoritative and above all supremely readable, Stephen Moss’s book is the first to trace the fascinating history of how and why people have watched birds for pleasure, from the beginnings with Gilbert White in the eighteenth century through World War Two POWs watching birds from inside their prison camp all the way to today’s ‘twitchers’ with their bleeping pagers, driving hundreds of miles for a rare tick.

The worlds of the East India Company

Abstract: Throws light on significant aspects of the Company's history. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MARITIME HISTORY The English East India Company was one of the most powerful commercial companies ever to have existed. It laid the foundations of the British Empire in South Asia and thus lies at the very heart of the interlinked histories of Britain and Asia. This first multi-disciplinary history of the Company to be published commemorates the four-hundredth anniversary of the founding of this unique and extraordinary institution. Historians of art, culture, cartography, empire, politics, the sea, and trade, explore the origins, operation, and influence of the Company as an organisation that remained firmly engaged in maritime commercial activity in many different spheres, even as it acted as a powerful agent of territorial expansion on the Indian subcontinent. H.V. BOWEN is senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Leicester; NIGEL RIGBY and MARGARETTE LINCOLN work in the research department of the National Maritime Museum, London.

Israel in exile : the history and literature of the sixth century B.C.E.

Abstract: The period of the Babylonian Exile (597/587-520 B.C.E.) is one of the most enthralling eras of biblical history. During this time, Israel went through what was probably its deepest crisis; at the same time, however, the cornerstone was laid for its most profound renewal. The crisis provoked the creation of a wealth of literary works (laments, prophetic books, historical works, etc.) whose development is analyzed in detail by the methods of social history, composition criticism, and redaction criticism. The history of this era is hard to grasp, since the Bible has almost nothing to say of the exilic period. The author nevertheless attempts to illuminate the historical and social changes that affected the various Judean groups, drawing heavily on extrabiblical and archaeological evidence. His study also includes the treatment of the exile in later biblical material (Daniel, Tobit, Judith, apocalyptic literature). Thirty-five years after Peter Ackroyd's classic "Exile and Restoration," this book summarizes extensively the results of recent scholarship on this period and builds on them with a number of its own hypotheses. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

Establishing Dress History

Abstract: Lou Taylor argues that only when women were permitted to be curators of dress within museum did the collection of all kinds of dress find its proper place in our museums of decorative arts, social history and ethnography. Chapters cover debates related to dress collecting in such institutions, including discussion of the return of sacred objects, the place of contemporary fashion within museums and issues of the commodification of collections and displays. This book is aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students on design, decorative arts, fashion and dress history courses, as well as those on museum studies and gender studies courses.

The Imaginary Revolution: Parisian Students and Workers in 1968

Abstract: "[the book] offers a meticulouos and appropriately dispassionate account of the French events of May 1968. Contributing to a more complete picture of what occurred, the book would be worthwhile reading in courses on comparative experiences of the 1960s." * Journal of Modern History "All and all, this is a terrific book written in a lively narrative. Seidman provides us with a breadth and depth of knowledge and a balanced analysis that make his version of May 1968 usable for scholarly study as well as for the classroom." * H-France Review The events of 1968 have been seen as a decisive turning point in the Western world of even mythical significance. The author takes a critical look at "May 1968" and questions whether the events were in fact as "revolutionary" as French and foreign commentators have indicated. His conclusions are rather more ambivalent: culturally, he argues, the student movement changed little that had not already been challenged and altered in the late fifties and early sixties. The workers' strikes led to fewer working hours and higher wages, but these reforms reflected the secular demands of the French labor movement. "May 1968" was remarkable not because of the actual transformations it wrought but rather by virtue of the revolutionary power that much of the media and most scholars have attributed to it and which turned it into a symbol of a youthful, renewed, and freer society in France and beyond. Michael Seidman received his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of Workers against Work: Labor in Barcelona and Paris during the Popular Fronts, (1991) (Japanese translation, 1998) and of Republic of Egos: A Social History of the Spanish Civil War, (2002) (Spanish translation, 2003. He currently teaches at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Prices in the ottoman empire, 1469–1914

Abstract: Despite the considerable expansion of research in Ottoman economic and social history in recent decades, our knowledge of the long-term trends in prices in the Ottoman Empire, and more generally in the Balkans and the Middle East, is very limited. Economic and social historians of these regions in the late medieval and early modern eras are still unable to make sense of the most basic of monetary magnitudes involving prices, wages, and wealth, even though inter-temporal comparisons of these magnitudes are the most basic prerequisites for studying the long duree.

Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad Doctors & Lunatics

Abstract: An account of mad doctors and how they 'cared' for their lunatic patients in the 18th century

‘An Era of Domesticity’? Histories of Women and Gender in Interwar Britain

Abstract: (2004). ‘An Era of Domesticity’? Histories of Women and Gender in Interwar Britain. Cultural and Social History: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 225-233.

England Eats Out: A Social History of Eating Out in England from 1830 to the Present

Abstract: Introduction : Beginnings. PART ONE 1830-1880. PART TWO : 1880 - 1914. PART THREE : 1914-1945. PART FOUR : 1945-2000.

Grand Narrative and Its Discontents: Medical History and the Social Transformation of American Medicine

Abstract: There can be little doubt that Paul Starr’s The Social Transformation of American Medicine (1982) (referred to in short as TSTAM), a study in the history of medicine, has enjoyed its most prominent success in realms outside the history of medicine (see Howell, this issue, and Jost, this issue). When the book appeared in 1982, reviews written by historians of medicine and health care acknowledged its achievement as a major work of synthesis, but tempered admiration with the repeated refrain that TSTAM— most especially in book one, which covered the period up to 1930 and is the focus of this essay—really said very little that was new. Over the ensuing two decades, moreover, Starr is nowhere to be found among the authors most cited in the medical history journal literature (Amsterdamska and Hiddinga 2004). Even works that have implicitly dealt major blows to the story Starr told have not often paused to register that fact. For example, in 1985 medical historian Ronald L. Numbers deftly pointed out that far from succumbing to a hegemonic “scientific medicine”—as Starr like most other writers had assumed—alternative practitioners in earlytwentieth-century America remained a vigorous competitive presence. Yet, even though Numbers’s praise (1983: 838) from his review in Science appeared on the back of the softcover edition of TSTAM—“If you read

The Arms of the Family: The Significance of John Milton's Relatives and Associates

Abstract: " John T. Shawcross's groundbreaking new study of John Milton is an essential work of scholarship for those who seek a greater understanding of Milton, his family, and his social and political world. Shawcross uses extensive new archival research to scrutinize several misunderstood elements of Milton's life, including his first marriage and his relationship with his brother, brother-in-law and nephews. Shawcross examines Milton's numerous royalist connections, complicating the conventional view of Milton as eminent Puritan and raising questions about the role his connections played in his relatively mild punishment after the Restoration. Unique in its methodology, The Arms of the Family is required reading not only for students of Milton but also for students of biography in general. Entire chapters dedicated to Milton's brother Christopher, his brother-in-law Thomas Agar, and his nephews Edward and John Phillips, illuminate the domestic forces that helped shape Milton's point of view. The final chapters reconsider Milton's political and sociological ideology in the light of these domestic forces and in the religious context of his three major poetic works: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regain'd, and Samson Agonistes . The Arms of the Family is a seminal work by a preeminent Miltonist, marking a major advance in Milton studies and serving as a model for those engaged in family history, social history, and the early modern period.