The Development of the European States System since the Eighteenth Century

1961 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
F. H. Hinsley
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Universal Scheme

After years of intense specialization in historical studies —in the history of ideas, of science, of historiography; in economic history, diplomatic history, administrative history, social history, legal history, world history, which last is fast becoming another specialism—there is perhaps no subject of historical enquiry that would not benefit from an attempt to amalgamate the results of all these disciplines. This is certainly true of international relations. The valuable labours of diplomatic historians have done no more than erect a scaffolding of established facts. In the work of understanding and explaining those facts we have not made much progress since von Ranke and Albert Sorel. Von Ranke's famous essay in interpretation, ‘The Great Powers’, was written more than 125 years ago, before the rise of specialist studies. For this reason, as well as on account of the preoccupation of his generation with national mission and divine intention in a universal scheme, it necessarily fell back on a mystical conception of the society of states, on a spiritual conception of the role of the individual state—on what must now be regarded as general history of the worst kind.

Social History in Serbia: The Association for Social History

2008 ◽  
Vol 34-35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 369-381
Author(s):  
Radina Vučetić ◽  
Olga Manojlović Pintar
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
South Eastern Europe ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The University

This review essay provides a brief overview of the research and publication activity of the Udruženje za društvenu istoriju/Association for Social History, an innovative scholarly organization established in 1998 in Belgrade, Serbia. The association promotes research on social history in modern South-Eastern Europe, with a focus on former Yugoslavia, and publishes scientific works and historical documents. The driving force behind the activity of the association is a group of young social historians gathered around Professor Andrej Mitrović, at the University of Belgrade. Prof. Mitrović’s work on the “social history of culture” has provided a scholarly framework for a variety of new works dealing with issues of modernization, history of elites, history of ideas, and the diffuse relationship between history and memory. Special attention is given to the Association’s journal, Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju/Annual for Social History, which published studies on economic history, social groups, gender issue, cultural history, modernization, and the history of everyday life in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Methodologically routed in social history, these research projects are interdisciplinary, being a joint endeavor of sociologists, art historians, and scholars of visual culture.

Individuality and Achievement in South Indian Social History

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattison Mines
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
South Indian ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Importance

One of the unresolved issues of Indian anthorpology is how to characterize and weigh the social importance of individuality and achievement in Indian social history. Of course, the individual as ‘empirical agent’ exists in India as everywhere (Dumont 1970a:9), yet because Hindu culture stresses collective identities over those of the individual, individual achievement, which is a measure of individuality, has been overlooked and sometimes outrightly rejected as a cause of history and social order (Dumont 1970a:107; 1970b; cf. Silverberg 1968). In consequence, the motivations underlying achievement that might explain historic action have also been ignored. This undervaluing of individuality and achievement has given rise to a long debate among South Asianists about the role of the individual in Indian society (e.g., Marriott 1968, 1969; Tambiah 1972:835; Beteille 1986, 1987), a debate that raises questions in wider arenas about the nature of society and culture in relation to individuals (e.g. Brown 1988; Mines 1988).

The maintenance, repair and construction of ships in the French Empire during the eighteenth century

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-611
Author(s):  
David Plouviez
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Construction Tasks ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Port Infrastructure

The history of maritime trade has been the subject of considerable research since the 1950s, but the technical artefacts of this trade have not received the attention they deserve. While historians have paid plenty attention to ships – their features, tonnage, etc. – and port infrastructure overseas, the issues relating to naval repair and construction in the Empires have rarely attracted interest. However, this is a key factor in understanding the dynamics of trade, which encompasses the interplay between economic history, social history and the history of technology. Drawing on the example of the French Empire, this article aims to provide a first approach to this economy of maintenance, repair and shipbuilding overseas. The first step is to identify the places where these complex tasks were carried out and to establish the temporality of equipment in overseas ports. Did the French Empire offer a network of ports equipped to maintain, repair and build ships? What equipment does this include? But while the question of infrastructure is crucial, insofar as it raises other issues related to the role of the State and its relationship with economic stakeholders, it is also essential to consider that a significant share of maintenance, repair and construction tasks were not associated with any specific infrastructure. The question of knowledge, know-how and their exchange within the Empires is also important and is the subject of the second part of this article. The aim is to demonstrate that the identification and breakdown of shipbuilding workers, the establishment of their occupational mobility and the technical discussions they engaged in with other Europeans, settlers or natives, provide challenging research opportunities that may help us to understand the maintenance, repair and construction of ships in the Empires.

scholarly journals Invisibility of Female Street Names in India

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Tania Sebastian
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Population Characteristics ◽  
Population Census ◽  
History Of ◽  
Disproportionate Number ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The City ◽  
Indian Cities

The aim of this article is to offer an analysis of the invisibility of women street names in select Indian cities. This study is comprised of four Indian cities, each one representing the northern (Delhi), southern(Chennai), eastern (Kolkata) and western (Mumbai) parts of India based on the highest population (Census of India, 2011). These cities have a background of different historical circumstances, diverse political influences, skewed sex ratios and varied population characteristics that make them a good representative sample for analyzing street names. The role of law and law-making surrounding the naming of streets is examined through this lens of political, social and historic divisions of these cities in India. This paper then proceeds to examine the guidelines issued by these cites that provide specifications for change of name of the street. The process for naming and renaming in these cities is as easy as moving a proposal with the state government stating the suggested name of the street accompanied by a brief write up about the accomplishments of the individual whose name is proposed- and the disproportionate number of street names of femalesvsends out the message of the non-recognition of their achievements. The naming of streets as a political choice with traces of the legal history of the city is explored from the ancient background upto the twentieth century spur of ‘reclaiming’ India by renaming streets. When read together with the denial of public spaces to women leads to the conclusion that the exclusion and bias of leaving out female names is symbolic of the visual aspects of the roles that women play in society. The present article is probably one of the first such attempts in scholarly literature that looks at female street names in India

Introduction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Mobilization ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The introduction offers a ‘global’ survey of the history of communism not only in the geographical sense but also in the sense of seeking to integrate history from above and history from below, social and cultural with political and economic history. The first half offers a synoptic view of the history of communist revolutions before and after 1945, highlighting the tensions between ‘intentionalist’ interpretations that stress human agency and political will and structuralist interpretations that stress the role of impersonal forces. It traces the way in which the meaning of the Russian Revolution was revised in the 1920s from being a mass revolution involving soviet power and radical equality to one concerned with the state mobilization of the human and material resources of a backward society to bring about economic, social, and military modernization. The second half looks at a number of major issues relating to the political, economic, and social history of communism in power. In respect of politics, these include the role of ideology in politics, the relationship of informal to formal political practices, the relationship of ‘neo-traditional’ to modern political practices, and the problem of bureaucracy. In respect of the economy, they include the relationship of the planned economy to the ‘second economy’, difficulties of economic reform, and the shift towards meeting the needs of the consumer from the 1950s. In respect of social aspects, the essay stresses the importance of non-state-directed social processes in shaping the development of communist societies, the reconstitution of forms of social inequality, ideas of cultural revolution, and policy towards women and national minorities. While not attempting to summarize historiography, the introduction seeks to give readers a sense of issues currently under debate.

The perils and dangers of these knights (and undead peasants): Interpreting English and Scottish Extent Rolls of 1297–1305

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Compte Rendu ◽  
History Of ◽  
Different Sources

Medieval Scottish economic and social history has held little interest for a unionist establishment but, just when a recovery of historic independence begins to seem possible, this paper tackles a (perhaps the) key pre-1424 source. It is compared with a Rutland text, in a context of foreign history, both English and continental. The Berwickshire text is not, as was suggested in 2014, a ‘compte rendu’ but rather an ‘extent’, intended to cross-check such accounts. Read alongside the Rutland roll, it is not even a single ‘compte’ but rather a palimpsest of different sources and times: a possibility beyond earlier editorial imaginings. With content falling (largely) within the time-frame of the PoMS project (although not actually included), when the economic history of Scotland in Europe is properly explored, the sources discussed here will be key and will offer an interesting challenge to interpretation. And some surprises about their nature and date.

Queering Gender Identity Work: A Life History of a Black Transgender Woman

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Esethu Monakali
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Ongoing Effort ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

This article offers an analysis of the identity work of a black transgender woman through life history research. Identity work pertains to the ongoing effort of authoring oneself and positions the individual as the agent; not a passive recipient of identity scripts. The findings draw from three life history interviews. Using thematic analysis, the following themes emerge: institutionalisation of gender norms; gender and sexuality unintelligibility; transitioning and passing; and lastly, gender expression and public spaces. The discussion follows from a poststructuralist conception of identity, which frames identity as fluid and as being continually established. The study contends that identity work is a complex and fragmented process, which is shaped by other social identities. To that end, the study also acknowledges the role of collective agency in shaping gender identity.

Cosmopolitan Capitalists and Colonial Rule. The business structure and corporate culture of the Swiss merchant house Volkart Bros., 1850s–1960s

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
CHRISTOF DEJUNG
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Positive Interactions ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Private Company ◽  
European Firm ◽  
Business Goals ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article examines the history of the Swiss merchant house Volkart Bros., which was one of the most important exporters of Indian raw cotton and one of the biggest trading firms in South Asia during the colonial period. The study allows for a fresh look at Indian economic history by putting forth two main arguments. First, it charts the history of a continental European firm that was active in South Asia to offer a better understanding of the economic entanglements of the subcontinent with the wider world, which often had a reach beyond the empire. This ties in with recent research initiatives that aim to examine the history of imperialism from a transnational perspective. Second, the history of a private company helps in developing a micro-perspective on the often ambiguous relation between the business goals of individual enterprises and colonial rule. The article argues that this may be evidence of the fact that capitalism and imperialism were two different, although sometimes converging, spatial structures, each with a distinct logic of its own. What is more, the positive interactions between European and Indian businessmen, fostered by a cosmopolitan attitude among business elites, point to the fact that even in the age of empire, the class background of actors could be more important for the establishing of cooperative ventures than the colour of their skin or their geographical origin. It is argued that this offers the possibility of examining the history of world trade in terms of global social history.

Chicago's Auditorium Building: Opera or Anarchism

1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siry
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social History ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Paris Opera ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opera House ◽  
Opera Houses

Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Building in Chicago (1886-1890) is here analyzed in the context of Chicago's social history of the 1880s. Specifically, the building is seen as a capitalistic response to socialist and anarchist movements of the period. The Auditorium's principal patron, Ferdinand W. Peck, created a theater that was to give access to cultural and civic events for the city's workers, to draw them away from both politicized and nonpoliticized "low" urban entertainments. Adler and Sullivan's theater was to serve a mass audience, unlike opera houses of the period, which held multiple tiers of boxes for privileged patrons. This tradition was represented by the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City (1881-1883). Turning away from works like the Paris Opéra, Peck and his architects perhaps sought to emulate ideas of other European theaters of the period, such as Bayreuth's Festspielhaus (1872-1876). Sullivan's interior had an ornamental and iconographic program that was innovative relative to traditional opera houses. His design of the building's exterior was in a Romanesque style that recalled ancient Roman monuments. It is here compared with other Chicago buildings of its era that represented high capital's reaction to workers' culture, such as Burnham and Root's First Regiment Armory (1889-1891), Peck's own house (1887), and the Chicago Athenaeum (1890-1891). The Auditorium's story invites a view of the Chicago School that emphasizes the role of patrons' ideological agenda rather than modern structural expression.

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