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First published in 1930, “The Fur Trade in Canada” is a book by Harold Innis that draws sweeping conclusions about the complex and frequently devastating effects of the fur trade on aboriginal peoples; about how furs as staple products induced an enduring economic dependence among the European immigrants who settled in the new colony and about how the fur trade ultimately shaped Canada's political destiny. Covers the fur trade era in Canada from the early 16th century to the 1920s. It analyses the economic and social implications of Canada's reliance on staple products.

Reflecting the growing interest of historians in memory studies, this edited collection examines the relationship between memory and global social movements from 1848 to the present. For a long time, there has been little attempt by historians to consider memory and social activism in an integrated, systematic, and comparative way. However, in recent years, scholars have demonstrated that social movements rely on collective memories to assert claims, mobilize supporters, and legitimize their political visions, while also helping to further shape collective memories. This book delves into the synergies between memory studies and social movements, exploring how social movements have been constructing and creating memories of their own activity, how specific landscapes of memory have influenced social movements, and how activists have used memory as a cultural resource to further their own goals and ambitions. The case studies presented cover a range of different types of political activism, including the fights for workers', gay, feminist, and pacifist rights, as well as ecological, urban, and far-right movements across the globe, portraying the diverse interrelations that exist between social movements and collective memory.

This open access book focuses on institutions that were produced and formed by the emerging welfare state. How were institutions experienced by the people who interacted with them? How did institutions as sites of experience shape and structure people's everyday lives? Histories of institutions have mainly focused on the structures and power relations produced by institutional settings. Likewise, despite an extensive historiography of the welfare state, reflections on individuals'experiences of welfare are few. By using ‘lived institutions'as its conceptual frame, this edited collection merges the fields of institutional studies, the history of the welfare state – and the novel and vibrant field of the history of experience.

Historians have long used biography and life narratives as a means of understanding the French Revolution, as classic studies on major figures such as Robespierre and Napoleon attest. At the current moment, however, many of the most creative such studies are focusing on relatively minor revolutionary figures. Such work, which combines the techniques of classic biography and microhistory, reveals how the great political, social, cultural and religious transformations of the revolutionary era were refracted through the prism of individual experience. This work often links to research and writing taking place in adjacent disciplines, notably around the ideas and practices of life-writing. These studies, themselves often grounded in the history of emotions, resist the'biographical illusion'that an individual's essence can be inferred unproblematically from their words and actions, and they also transcend the tendency to see those words and actions as merely symptoms of broader political processes. By focusing on individual life stories in their own right and insisting on the slipperiness of individual identity, this book explores emergent forms of subjectivity.

This book presents a unique historical study on the origins of longevity risk management and its links to religious institutions in the eighteenth century. Throughout history, monarchs, affluent patrons, and wealthy benefactors routinely pledged to provide their devotees with pensions or life annuities, mirroring the biblical concept of ‘daily bread for life'. Until the eighteenth century, however, the uncertainty around the longevity of beneficiaries'lives and the difficulty of budgeting for random financial obligations had posed economic challenges that often led to insufficient funding and high default rates. This book narrates the genesis of longevity risk pooling and the first successfully funded annuity scheme in history, an eventual prototype for national pension plans around the world. It examines how a group of Protestant clergymen, scientists, and intellectuals associated with the Presbyterian Church of Scotland pioneered innovative methods for setting up a reversionary annuity and widow's pension plan, guided by actuarial principles. Unknown to many, the economist Adam Smith, and other literati of the Scottish Enlightenment, invested in this novel annuity. Illuminating the social and theological contexts of this scheme, the book argues that religious belief played a critical role in the development of best practices around the prudent management of longevity risk. The practices, values and beliefs in divine probabilities were at the heart of these thought leaders'confidence in long-term financial projections. Shedding light on this fascinating aspect of actuarial history by an examination of the archival records, while also linking to contextual discussions of modern pension challenges, this book will be of interest to scholars and readers interested in finance, insurance, pensions, and religion.

This book argues for an approach based on values when trying to make sense of shifts and changes that occurred in French politics during the last four decades. Values play a pivotal role in structuring political views and policy preferences. They influence citizens'attitudes and behaviours as well as reflect long-lasting political cultures and cleavages. After presenting the data collected within the European values studies, on which the six contributions included in this book build, we explain how these contributions highlight some major French political dynamics by scrutinizing key driving forces such as the individualization process, generational replacement or ideological consistency in economic and cultural beliefs, and by re-assessing how attitudes toward democracy, religiosity and nationalism shape political attitudes. Challenging dominant narratives of value crisis, this book sets up an agenda for future research on French politics through the lens of value change.Previously published in French Politics Volume 19, issue 2-3, September 2021.

This book highlights the broad scope and span of resistance as a contentious practice in the early modern Iberian world. In this context, from the late Middle Ages onwards, resistance, rooted in the political and legal language of the ‘old regime'that provided agents with legitimacy and resources for their actions, took place mainly within the established jurisdictional system. These resources for litigation and demand made resistance a widespread kind of contesting practice related to wider protests. The authors assess the wide array of actions developed by individuals and communities to preserve their rights and identities. The book demonstrates how the Portuguese and Hispanic polities and their colonial possessions experienced resistance from below over a long period of change that marked the rise of more centralised states. Offering a comprehensive overview of the variety of forms and expressions of resistance developed in different social, cultural, and territorial contexts, this collection sheds additional light on the relationship between order and conflict within early modern European empires.

This textbook provides a history of modern Germany, locating the country's social, cultural, and political developments within their proper global and transnational context. The author argues that most developments in German culture, society, and politics throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were caused by wider global and transnational trends. A history of the German people rather than the German state, the book focusses on non-state and non-government actors, intercultural transfers, and applies the approach of ‘thick description'to analysing the creation of German culture, society, and identity from the era of the Napoleonic wars right up to the present post-unification Germany. This includes an examination of German migrants'journeys to their new homes in the Americas and, thus, the creation of a global German diaspora with cultural and social networks beyond its home country's borders. The book further focusses on the transfers that connected German society and culture with those of other countries; for instance, chapters cover the transfer of football from England to Germany, the transfer of the Christmas holiday tradition from Germany to other countries, and the development of eugenics in Germany within its global context.

This book offers a unique perspective on the colonial roots of modern science, technology, and medicine (STM) in South Asia. The book questions the deconstruction of imperial visions and definitions of science and modernity in South Asia. It presents an in-depth analysis of the contested relationship between science, modernity, and colonialism. It explores how new research can contribute to the diversification of perspectives in the history and sociology of modern South Asian studies. The chapters in the book delve into various aspects of STM in South Asia. It covers diverse topics, including the social, cultural, and pedagogic context of early modern Bengal, the popularization of science in colonial Punjab, the Hindi science periodical Vigyan, and the emergence of the Indian science community. The book also examines the intersection of indigenous medical practices, ayurveda, Unani, and medical revivalism and highlights peripheral creativity in science. The contributors engage with the existing historiography to raise new questions concerning the global circulations of scientific knowledge from the perspective of South Asia and the regional appropriation of the same. It connects the history of science and modernity with South Asia's socio-economic and cultural background. It offers valuable insights into the decolonization of STM. It greatly interests scholars and students of modern South Asian history, sociology, social anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS).

This book sheds light on the untold stories of individual student activists at Queens College, New York City, during the 1960s. Against the backdrop of the ongoing Vietnam War and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, some Americans began to lose faith in their government. Based on injustices that students saw in their campuses, in the country, and in the world at large, they began to question their political leaders. Students organized their discontents over three major issues: civil rights, free speech, and anti-war sentiments. Their protests involved direct actions such as sit-ins, marches, picketing, and boycotts. At Queens College (QC), as the students moved away from the repressive McCarthy era of the 1950s, they began to confront and challenge those in power at the college in the 1960s. The defining characteristic of this break from the past was a student strike in 1961 in objection to the ban of controversial speakers who had been invited to campus by student clubs. The student strike of 1961 gave the activists among them a direct and immediate way to fight power on campus and to fight racism and discrimination. The author argues that student movements cannot be attributed to a single explanation, and therefore, he focuses on individual historical contexts, presenting first-person narratives from the actual participants, and tells their stories in their own voices, from their own records, and from the documents they left behind. The book identifies the QC student activists of the 1960s, exploring how and why they became activists; their activities; their achievement as activists; and what motivated them to think that they could make history themselves by confronting racism. It provides an intimate look at the students'lives and their social justice journey, beginning at Queens College and as they moved into their careers.

This book explores the role of the British Police in home food production during the First World War, a critical time when decreasing food imports threatened population starvation around the country. Drawing from the police's most popular weekly journal, the book provides insights into policemen's lives, the political context in which they worked, and the pressures on police forces throughout Britain during the Great War. Unlike neighbouring countries in Europe, Britain avoided major food riots due to government control of farming from December 1916, which prioritised agriculture to feed the nation. The police force released over 400 policemen in England and Scotland to serve as ploughmen from March 1917 for around two months. Almost a third of policemen throughout Britain had previous agricultural backgrounds and so were welcomed by farmers as experienced workers. This book illustrates not only why the food crisis arose and the state of British farming during the war, but it also sheds light on how individual police forces were approached and encouraged to release their policemen, at a time when police forces themselves were critically short of staff due to recruitment into the war. The author discusses how the release of policemen into agriculture as first responders benefitted the police and provided surveillance over home food production in the national interest.

This book examines the efforts of the government in Scotland to manage the increase of migrants travelling to Britain at the end of the nineteenth century. Focussing on the period between 1885 and 1939, the book explores how the Scottish machinery of government handled the administration of ‘foreigners.'The author uses a comparative, thematic approach to analyse migrant experiences, identities, and relationships with state institutions. Drawing from state records held by the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh, the book argues that Scottish officials in semi-autonomous boards began to recognise, describe and enumerate the presence of the ‘foreigner'in the early twentieth century, framing their handling of foreignness in accordance with the Aliens Act of 1905. The author goes on to explain that institutions operating in Scotland developed a distinctly Scottish approach to alien matters, which continued up until the Second Word War. Therefore, an increasing number of importantdecisions affecting migrants were taken by a distinctly Scottish machinery of government, impacting on how Scottish officials understood foreignness, and how those identified as foreigners understood their identity in relation to Scottishness. Contributing significantly to current heated debates on migration and identity amongst researchers and the general public in Europe and beyond, this book provides essential insights into the ways in which a ‘sub-state'began to develop practices, processes and attitudes towards migration which were not always in line with that of the central government.

This book documents and analyses Chilean university and school students'opposition to the Pinochet regime during the latter years of the 1970s and the 1980s. The book focuses on key episodes such as the establishment of cultural groups within the militarily controlled universities that enabled students to congregate and exchange ideas for the first time since the 1973 coup; how university and secondary school students created their own democratic institutions to challenge the regime-appointed bodies; and how these eventually led to the restoration of the national federations that had been banned by the military government. The author explores the key relationship between the vertically organised, underground political parties, and the horizontally organised, broad, non-partisan organisations created by the students, arguing that this structure brought advantages to the movement. The students'contribution to the national protests in the 1980s ensured that opposition to the regime was highly visible in the city centre, resulting in a socially broadened opposition with a focus on youth, rather than disenfranchisement and poverty. Offering a detailed account of different forms of student activism, this book evaluates the role of school and university students within the broader anti-dictatorship opposition in Chile.

This book examines the impact of shipbuilding on the society of the Song Dynasty from multiple perspectives and points out the positive contribution of ancient manufacture industry to social development at that time. It explores some virgin territories and presents strong originality, such as the inland navigation methods in the Song Dynasty, the system of gods and goddesses in the aquatic world, and the defense system of the Yangtze River and the sea in the Southern Song Dynasty. It includes the markets in the coastal areas, the perception and imagery of the sea, the maritime disasters and rescues, the river courses and sea warfare, and the management of private ships in the Song Dynasty. On top of that, it provides fresh analysis and new perspectives on some issues that have been studied, such as Lisheng, shapes and sizes of ships, and vehicles and ships in the Song Dynasty.

This is an open access book. This OA book contains extensive research on social justice during China's transition period. Rather than taking a macro-historical approach, or looking at social justice from a philosophical perspective, the book focuses on relevant theories and justice at a meso-level. It looks at the basis for social justice, and details the basic values and the basic standpoints when it comes to social justice. It differentiates between the concepts of justice, righteousness, fairness and equality. It then lays out three social justice rules (related to equal opportunities, distribution and social adjustment), and discusses the ideas of intergenerational justice and procedural justice. The book looks from a sociological point of view at social justice during China's period of transition. It focuses on how certain rules affect the social strata, and how they lead to discrimination, inequalities, liberty, equality, universal justice and/or differential justice. This book assesses improper pursuits of social justice in China. It also looks at how the ideas of liberty and equality have evolved, and some of the key problems over the last 70 years. This book also explains some of the more popular social topics that foster empirical discussions. Since the reform and opening-up era, China has made great achievements when it comes to social development. The country has made notable progress with social justice. There are more equal opportunities than ever before. Nevertheless, there remain worrying problems when it comes to the idea of justice. To some extent, these problems offset the achievements. In some form, the development processes have been somewhat misguided, and these have had a negative impact on Chinese society and how it functions and develops. Therefore, this book is of theoretical and practical significance when it comes to social justice research.

El énfasis del libro es la historia social y en los primeros capítulos combina análisis cualitativos con referencias cuantitativas debido a que es la mejor forma para alcanzar los propósitos de mi análisis. La sola descripción cualitativa corre el riesgo, que ya es práctica común, de terminar, por un lado, hiperbolizando muchos aspectos de la vida social, y por otra parte de dejar de lado asuntos que son claves para entender la vida de la gente del común. Muchas veces en historia social es importante medir, y establecer las representaciones específicas de los distintos sectores sociales que se estudian, porque de ello, en cierta medida, dependerán los análisis que hagamos de la sociedad. Y los análisis cuantitativos por sí solo corren el riesgo de solo presentar una especie de sociografía. Por eso, el modelo que aplico combina ambos aspectos.

This book brings together a group of British and Italian scholars who have made significant contributions to the historiography of modern Italy over the last three decades, dedicated to the influence of Paul Ginsborg. Reflecting Ginsborg's interest in the encounter of social and political history in modern Italy, contributions explore the varied forms taken by activism in civil society. Rather than just treating activism and engagement as limited, circumscribed phenomena within a political system, the essays consider these as interventions in the social. Taken together, the contributions gathered here highlight Ginsborg's contributions to scholarship and activism, as well as advancing our understanding of cultural change, institutional reform and the renewal of community in modern Italian history.

From a sociological perspective, this book explores issues related to population mobility, family pensions, and the lives of workers and peasants during the 70 years of urbanization since the founding of New China from the perspectives of population, pension security, employment structure transformation, and social insurance systems, thus exploring the deep logic behind China's successful experience. The relevant issues studied in this book are a systematic summary of the experiences and lessons learned from social reforms since the founding of the country and also provide guidance for the future direction of social development and change.

Exploring the history and politics of a powerful and long-lasting idea: the creation and maintenance of European worlds outside of Europe. This textbook provides a broad overview of settler colonialism in the modern era. The author outlines how the founding of new societies was envisaged and practiced around the world, illustrating the specific ways in which settler colonial projects tried to establish ideal and regenerated political bodies. With an updated introduction and an additional chapter examining decolonisation and Indigenous recognition, this second edition brings the study of settler colonialism up to the present day.

Stanley Rice, born in London in 1905, began his autobiography by stating that his life was ‘an ordinary average life with all its ups and downs'. Stanley may have described his life as ordinary, and yet he lived through a period of rapid social change, including two world wars. Despite this, Stanley assumed that his life story would be of little interest to most readers, as he had not achieved great fame or any notable accolades. This book argues that this is exactly why historians should focus on such life stories, as there is much to be gained by focusing on memories of ‘ordinary average lives', as they can expand our knowledge of the past, often revealing firsthand experiences that have been excluded from the historical record. This book does not intend to be a general social history of the working class. Rather, it is a work of memory, drawing upon a microhistory methodology to examine how a sample of one hundred working-class autobiographers remembered and wrote about living through years that were punctuated by two worldwide conflicts and a global economic depression.

This book proposes a new historical framework for the analysis of the relationship between communist Poland and neutral Austria during the final decade of the Cold War. The tragic Polish crisis of 1980–1982 is examined within the context of Poland's relationship with the wealthy, neutral country of Austria. By exploring the political meetings and negotiations that took place around the introduction of martial law in Poland, this book sheds light on Polish-Austrian bilaterial relations as seen from the perspective of Polish diplomatic documents. Divided into three parts, the book begins by illustrating Austria's attitude to reforms in Poland in the early 1980s. The second part focuses specifically on the imposition of martial law in Poland, and the third part explores the cooperation between the two countries through the form of investments and environment protection. Particular emphasis is placed on Polish attempts to recruit Austrian politicians in order to overcome the political isolation in which Warsaw found itself after December 13, 1981. The author analyses the political boundaries that Austria could, and wanted to, cross, in order to help the Polish regime, offering insights into Austria's fears of financial loss as a result of the collapse of the regime.

This book reexamines the socioeconomic and political transformation that occurred in Brazil during the 1940s as a result of the Second World War. Integrating social and political history, the author explores the adoption of new policies around state-sponsored industrialisation, the consolidation of Brazilian labour law institutions, and the expanded influence of ‘racial democracy'in the country's domestic and foreign policy. The book argues that the nature of the Brazilian state and its definitions of citizenship were redefined both from ‘the top'– as a result of Brazil's integration in the new international order following the War – and ‘from below'- as antifascism and mass nationalism opened new spaces for subaltern agency. Challenging traditional narratives on Brazil's transition from the Estado Novo dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas to a postwar democratic experience, this book highlights the extent to which political developments were shaped by key global processes and foreign relations with the USA. The book also focuses on the ‘bottom-up'forces and actors that brought about change in Brazil, emphasising the role of workers, protestors, and popular actors in shaping history. Breaking new ground in Brazilian historiography, this book makes a significant contribution to studies of populism and democratisation in Latin America.

This book shows how inflation can disrupt politics and society. With no recent precedent, mild inflation spurred mass protests, myriad remedial schemes, and partisan political reversals between 1910 and 1914. Then wartime demand and inflationary fiscal policy doubled consumer prices from 1915 to 1920, triggering waves of strikes, food riots by immigrant housewives, class conflict, and elite fears of revolution. Middle-class households resented falling real incomes. Even more than today, food prices dominated consumer concerns. Yet farmers wanted high commodity prices. Accordingly, both sides blamed and attacked meatpackers, wholesalers, and retailers. Then as now, inflation hurt whichever party held the White House. Fumbling responses by Wilson's administration and the Federal Reserve led to hesitant price controls, punitive raids and prosecutions, and a now-familiar fallback—high interest rates in 1920 and subsequent recession. An epilogue traces continuing popular and politicalresponses to changes in the consumer price index down to 2020.