Society without the social: the Spanish labour movement and the rise of the social, 1840–1880

Focusing on the Spanish case, this article addresses two fundamental questions: why were many unionized workers sceptical about state intervention in labour issues throughout the nineteenth century, and why did this attitude begin to change from the 1860s onwards? Its main thesis is that workers’ attitudes derived ultimately from different historical notions of ‘society’ that shaped their perceptions and experiences of labour relations and their attitude toward the role of the state. Thus, a notion of society as an aggregation of individuals shaped unionized Spanish workers’ hostility toward state intervention since the creation of the first unions in the 1840s. From the 1860s onward, a new conception of collective relations, namely ‘the social’, began to transform some workers’ expectations of the role of the state in labour conflicts. The main factor that explains this change, it is argued, lies in the relationship between the workers’ imaginary, their actions, and their expectations about these actions.     

Democracy's breakdown and the rise of fascism: The case of the Spanish Second Republic, 1931–6

A number of plausible, competing, mass-based accounts exist in the literature explaining the breakdown of democracy and the rise of fascism in Spain, Italy and Germany. The objective of this article is to specify further empirically mass-based accounts of the social origins of democracy and modern authoritarianism in the Spanish Second Republic (1931–1936). In specifying mass-based general theories of the breakdown of democracy and the rise of fascism in inter-war Europe, the article contends that the polarising dynamic of agrarian reform is a central factor undermining the Republic.     

Social stability and agrarian change in the eastern lowlands of Scotland, 1810–1840

John J. McCusker, Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World, Routledge Studies in International Economic and Social History, I (1997), xxiii + 426 (Routledge, London and New York, £65.00/$65.00).

Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (1997), xvi + 419 (University of California Press, London and Berkeley, £40.00/$50.00, paperback £15–95/$19–95).

Helen Bradley Foster, ’New Raiments of Self’: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South (1997), ix + 359 (Berg Publishers, New York, £39.95/$46.00, paperback

Howard B. Rock, Paul A. Gilje and Robert Asher (eds), American Artisans: Crafting Social Identity, 1750–1850 (1995), xx + 251 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, £37.00/$45.00, paperback £14.00/$16.95).

David R. Green, From Artisans to Paupers: Economic Change and Poverty in London 1790–1870 (1995), xvii + 298 (Scolar Press, Aldershot £45.00/$76.95).

Gary B. Cohen, Education and Middle‐Class Society in Imperial Austria 1848‐igi8 (1996), xxi + 386 (Purdue University Press, £34.95/$40.95).

Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries. Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848–1914 (1996), xi + 304 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, £42.50/$49.50).

Geoff Eley (ed.), Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870–1930 (1996), viii + 522 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, £47.50/$59.50, paperback $26.95).

Neil MacMaster, Colonial Migrants and Racism:Algerians in France, 1900–62 (1997), vii + 307 (St Martin's Press, New York, £45.00/$65.00).

Gerd‐Rainer Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism. Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s (1996), xii + 211 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £42.50/845.00).

Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protest to Socialist State (1997), xviii + 445 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, £52.50/$65.00, paperback £19–95/$24.95).

Ryan Bishop and Lillian S. Robinson, Night Market. Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic Miracle (1998), x + 278 (Routledge, London and New York, £45.00/$65.00, paperback £12.99/$17.95).

Katharine H. S. Moon, Among Allies. Military Prostitution in U.S.‐Korea Relations (1997), xiii + 240 (Columbia University Press, New York, $47.50, paperback $16.95).     

Anarchism,Revolution and Reaction: Catalan Labour and the Crisis of the Spanish State, 1898–1923

The British Journal of Sociology, XXVII, no. 3, September 1976 (special issue ‘Sociology and history'), 117 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, £2.50).

Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (1977), xviii+390 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, £15.80).

T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin and F. J. Byrne (eds), A Sew History of Ireland, Vol. III, Early Modern Ireland 1534–1691 (1976), lxiii+736 (Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, £17).

Edward Shorter, The Making of the Modern Family (1976), xiv+369 (Collins, £4.50).

Dirk Blasius, Bürgerliche Gesellschaft und Kriminalität: zur Sozialgeschichte Preussens im Vormärz (1976), 203 (Vandenhoeck &; Ruprecht, Göttingen, DM 38).

Carsten Rüther, Räuber und Gauner in Deutschland: das Organisierte Bandenwesen im 18. und Frühen 19. Jahrhundert (1976), 197 (Vandenhoeck &; Ruprecht, Göttingen, no price given).

James S. Donnelly Jr, The Land and People of Nineteenth‐Century Cork: The Rural Economy and the Land Question (1975), xiv+440 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, £9.95).

Herbert G. Gutman, Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America. Essays in American Working‐Class and Social History (1976), xiv+343 (Alfred Knopf, New York, $12.50, paperback $7).

James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey 1825–1875 (1976), xiv+353 (Oxford University Press, £12.00).

R. J. Morris, Cholera 1832 (1976), 228+vii (Croom Helm, £7.50).

Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernisation of Rural France 1870–1914 (1977), xv+615 (Chatto &; Windus, £12.00).

Stuart D. Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism 1880–1940 (1976), ix+210 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, £10.55).

Charles van Onselen, Chibaro ‐ African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1933 (1976) 326 (Pluto Press, £7.50).     

Deficit sustainability,and monetary versus fiscal dominance: The case of Spain, 1850–2000

In this paper, we provide a test of the sustainability of the Spanish government deficit over the period 1850–2000, emphasizing the role played by monetary and fiscal dominance in order to get fiscal solvency. Since the condition of fiscal solvency was satisfied, government deficit would have been sustainable along the sample period. In addition, the whole period can be characterized as one of fiscal dominance.     

Convergence and divergence in state political behavior, 1970–2004

In view of the ongoing debate about the degree and direction of political polarization in the U.S., we assess whether the 50 states are converging or diverging in their behavior in state and federal elections. We find that states are diverging in their behavior in federal elections but converging in their behavior in state elections. Previous scholars have shown the need to distinguish between the degree of polarization of elites and ordinary citizens. Our findings demonstrate the further need to distinguish between trends in partisan polarization at the federal and state level.     

The social composition of plaintiffs and defendants in the Peacemaker court,Leiden, 1750–54

This article assesses the social positions of the plaintiffs and defendants who appeared before a small claims court, namely the Peacemaker court (Vredemakers) of the city of Leiden in the Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century, a low threshold law court that boasted a quick and inexpensive procedure. Analysis of the social positions of the court's plaintiffs and defendants helps reveal the extent to which lower social groups actively made use of it. The article is based on linkage between a sample of users of the Peacemaker court during the years 1750–54 and a census of 1749 comprising socio-economic data for the entire Leiden population. The court clientele of the Peacemaker court was distinctively elitist. The court was thus first and foremost a forum for an inner group of more well-to-do households who were firmly established in the local community. The Peacemaker court was notably inexpensive and simple in its procedures, yet lower social groups remained markedly reticent to file complaints there, revealing a significant socio-cultural gap between these groups and the burgomasters and aldermen who staffed and maintained the courts.     

The role of individual agents in promoting peace processes: business people and policy entrepreneurship in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Are individual businesspeople who operate as policy entrepreneurs willing and able to influence peace processes in conflict areas? The literature on businesspeople as policy agents shifts when talking about peace processes, focusing on group level activities and ignoring the effect of individual agents. We argue that rather than regarding businesspeople as a traditional interest group, we should consider the approaches to promoting change that strongly motivated individuals adopt as policy entrepreneurs. Based on interviews with senior Israeli businesspeople and decision-makers, we demonstrate how strongly motivated Israeli businesspeople promote peace as policy entrepreneurs. We identify their motivations, goals, challenges, and the strategies they use. The findings indicate that although motivated by economic profits, businesspeople undertake activities that may prove very beneficial to both themselves and society as a whole.     

The origins of the ‘creative class’: provincial urban society,scientific culture and socio-political marginality in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries1

Recent historiography has revealed the importance of scientific culture in British society during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with scientific knowledge shown to have been central in a wide range of sites and contexts, from botanical gardens to mechanics’ institutes. The article draws upon the insights of historians of science, urban historians and others to argue that the concept of the English ‘urban renaissance’, the Habermasean model of the public sphere, various aspects of post-structural, post-modern and feminist theory, and attention to ‘the space’ and geography can all be used to enhance the understanding of this culture. Given that scientific culture has often been associated with social groups that have sometimes been described as ‘marginal’, the article explores the historiography of various aspects of what it defines as the ‘marginal model’ of cultural expression. Aspects of its various manifestations are explored with special reference to groups often perceived as ‘alternative’ or ‘peripheral’ to ‘dominant’ or majority culture, such as women, dissenters, gays or immigrants, including recent work in the United States concerning the activities of the ‘creative class’. It is contended that this can illuminate our understanding of British scientific culture, for instance through its emphasis on urban and regional differentiation and on the irrational aspects of intellectual endeavour. The study assesses how successfully models of social marginality account for the varied character and geography of this culture, using case-studies of scientific societies in different types of English town and a review of Scottish Enlightenment science.     

The destruction of liberty in French Guiana: law,identity and the meaning of legal space, 1794–1830

Abstract

This article examines the colonial legal culture of French Guiana from 1794 to 1830 during a period marked by dramatic historical rupture; slaves in the colony who were liberated by decree of the French legislature in 1794 were returned to slavery under Napoleon. People who managed to remain free in the nineteenth century endured humiliating legal handicaps as well as challenges to their free status. In Guiana during this period, a person's access to the ‘rights of man and citizen’ depended on intricate and ultimately fragile legal structures. The perils besetting Guiana's freed people during and after the French Revolution often arose from the highly adjustable character of legal space – the legal status of imperial territory in relation to domestic soil. This article draws on archival materials including notarial documents and trial records to reconstruct the role of law and legal discourse in mediating everyday life, familial relationships and social encounters on the French colonial frontier.     

The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860–1914

David Gaunt, Familjeliv i Norden (1983), 327 (Gidlunds, Malmo, n.p.). (Family Life in the Nordic Countries.)

Peter Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History 1200–1830 (1983), xiv+353 (Longman, paperback, £9.95).

Mary Fulbrook, Piety and Politics: Religion and the Rise of Absolutism in England, Württemberg and Prussia (1983), viii+215 (Cambridge University Press, £20.00, paperback £7.95.)

Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman (eds), Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution (1983), xxviii+314 (University Press of Virginia, Char‐lottesville, $15.95).

John Bohstedt, Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales 1790–1810 (1983), x+310 (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., £25.50).

Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middleclass Culture in America, 1830–1870 (1983), xviii + 262 (Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, £15.50).

David Englander, Landlord and Tenant in Urban Britain, 1838–1918 (1983), xviii+342 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £22.50).

Konrad H. Jarausch, Students, Society and Politics in Imperial Germany: The Rise of Academic Illiberalism (1982), viii+448 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, $40.00, paperback $16.50).

Joseph Buckman, Immigrants and the Class Struggle: The Jewish Immigrant in Leeds 1880–1914 (1983), xii + 183 (Manchester University Press, £17.50). Harold Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England (1983), 339 (Associated University Presses, £20.00).

S. A. Smith, Red Petrograd : Revolution in the Factories, 1917—1918 (1983), (Cambridge University Press, £25.00).

Robert J. Waller, The Dukeries Transformed: The Social and Political Development of a Twentieth‐Century Coalfield (1983), ix+319 (Oxford University Press, £22.50).

Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich, Bavaria 1933–1945 (1983), xv+425 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £22.50).

P. Abrams, Historical Sociology (1982), xviii+353 (Open Books, Shepton Mallet, £12.00, paperback £6.00).

D. Smith, Barrington Moore: Violence, Morality and Political Change (1983), viii+195 (Macmillan, £12.95, paperback £4.95).     

Physical and moral regeneration after the Terror: medical culture,sensibility and family politics in France, 1794–1804

Physical and moral regeneration was one of the great aspirations of the French Revolution. Revolutionaries fashioned new cultural practices to emphasize collective rebirth and the individual citizen’s own break with a degenerate past. Often associated with radical politics, this article emphasizes regeneration’s conservative manifestations after the Reign of Terror and the Thermidorean reaction of 1794. Against the backdrop of revolutionary transformations in medical theory and practice, doctors and surgeons sought to bring new biomedical knowledge upon previous regenerative projects, arguing that unrestrained biological passions had enervated the polity and caused social disaggregation. By studying domestic hygiene and the ‘limited sensibility’ of living matter, practitioners hoped they could reverse the Jacobin excess and popular upheaval through physical and moral education. These doctors claimed that recent clinical discoveries showed that human nature was less malleable than earlier revolutionaries had believed. Therefore, greater elements of emotional and corporal self-control, taught by practitioners and internalized within the family, could heal civil society and encourage social improvement. This bio-medical programme of regeneration radiated out across three levels, moving from elite clinical theorists to a kind of ‘literary underground’ of medical practice: a hygienic regimen aimed at controlling limited amounts of vital energy in the human body; a ‘physical and moral’ rehabilitation of women to anchor them in the domestic sphere; and reproductive strategies to breed new generations of rejuvenated citizens. In their efforts to incorporate republican hygienic sensibilities within traditional law and custom, doctors helped efface revolutionary memory and contributed to the paternalistic family law of the Civil Code in 1804.     

Status,gender and life cycle in the consumption practices of the English elite. The case of Mary Leigh, 1736–1806

The consumption practices of the elite have received a great deal of attention from historians over the years. The role of women (and gender) is mostly considered in the context of married couples, and therefore at a particular stage in the life cycle, with emphasis placed on the complementary role of husband and wife in the household economy. We know less about the consumption behaviour of single women, especially the ways in which this developed over their life course, singleness being seen as a passing stage rather than a long-term condition for many elite women. This article takes a case-study approach to explore in detail how consumption and shopping behaviour were shaped by gender, status and family, and how the relative importance of these changed over the life course of the individual. It focuses in particular on what was bought from whom and the factors shaping the choice of supplier, and argues that single status gave women freedom to act, but that this was framed by the obligations of status and the constraints of family. Landownership, of course, brought responsibilities as well as opportunities that shaped spending; but family as lineage was especially important in shaping patterns and geographies of spending.