Journal of Social History articles from June 2009

Journal of Social History archives from June 2009

"Crete the opening wedge": nationalism and international affairs in Postbellum America.(SECTION I EXTENDING SOCIAL HISTORY: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, HUMOR)
June 22, 2009... "Thou sobbing captive in a sea of smiles, Whose fairy sails on sunny errands flee, Shall the blue waves that bless thy sister isles Bind on thy brow the curse of slavery?" --Unattributed (1) "Oh! what were the projects you made, Mrs....

"The terrible laughter of the Afrikaner"--towards a social history of humor.(Report)
June 22, 2009... A young Boer guerrilla fighter, Deneys Reitz, described the defeated Boer commandos drifting into the camps in May 1902, as a rabble of "starving, ragged men, clad in skins or sacking, their bodies covered with sores, from lack of salt and food...

Monsters in the village? Incest in nineteenth century France.(WINNER OF THE 2008 GRADUATE STUDENT COMPETITION)(Report)
June 22, 2009... Introduction Lost deep in the consciousness of mankind, incest continues to suggest hotror. Beyond just the crime, the taboo has created the monster. (1) But in France, since the end of the nineteenth century, the social imaginary of...

Country living, country dying: rural suicides in New Zealand, 1900-1950.(Report)
June 22, 2009... In the major settlement colonies of the British Empire and successor states, notably the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, protean myths thrived about the independence of rural life and the contentment of small farmers relative...

Journalists and Police Detectives in Victorian and Edwardian England: an Uneasy Reciprocal Relationship.(SECTION III REQIONAL TOPICS)(Report)
June 22, 2009... Detectives are sometimes likened to historians and vice versa. (1) On closer examination, the resemblance between detectives and journalists is no less noticeable. The latter likeness, specifically between police detectives and journalists who...

"We had Carding": hospitable card play and polite domestic sociability among the middling sort in eighteenth-century England.(SECTION III REQIONAL TOPICS)(Report)
June 22, 2009... Over the heady years of England's eighteenth century, expanding trade and ever-greater urban wealth were the midwives of a new leisure culture. No longer did merchants need to spend every waking hour in the shop or the warehouse; physicians and...

Factionalism and state power in the Flemish Revolt (1482-1492).(SECTION III REQIONAL TOPICS)(Report)
June 22, 2009... "It was a damned plague that caused great sadness in Bniges, because the citizens were divided into two factions. Brothers were separated. Even husbands and wives quarrelled about the factions" (1) The factional struggle between Monetans...

The Slave Ship: A Human History.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... The Slave Ship: A Human History. By Marcus Rediker (New York: Viking, 2007.434 pp.). In this eloquent and deeply provocative new book, Marcus Rediker synthesizes a vast body of recent scholarship as well as a broad range of testimonials,...

Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955.(Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life)(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955. By Adam Green (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 280 pp.). Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life. By Davarian L. Baldwin...

Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction. By Mitchell Snay (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. xii plus 218 pp. $40.00). Mitchell Snay's important new book examines some...

Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados. By Russell R. Menard (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2006. xvii plus 181 pp.). Russell Menard's new book shows how attention to...

All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900. By Martha S, Jones (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. 317 pp.). In All Bound Up Together, Martha S. Jones analyzes the wide...

Race in the American South: From Slavery to Civil Rights.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Race in the American South: From Slavery to Civil Rights. By David Brown and Clive Webb (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. vi plus 392 pp.). This ambitious and impressive book is designed to support the authors' deceptively...

Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity. By Paul Spickard (New York: Routledge, 2007. xx plus 721pp. $39.95). Paul Spickard's Almost All Aliens is about much more than immigration, as that...

Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1938.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1938. By Laura L. Lovett (Chapel Hill; The University of North Carolina Press, 2007. viii plus 236 pp.). Although the United States has not invested...

Raising an Empire: Children in Early Modern Iberia and Colonial Latin America.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Raising an Empire: Children in Early Modern Iberia and Colonial Latin America. Edited by Ondina E. Gonzalez and Bianea Premo (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. xi plus 258 pp. $24.95). In the early days of the history of...

Jacob's Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Jacob's Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History. By Joseph A. Amato (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008. xvi plus 279 pp.). Professional historians have tended to leave the field of family history to genealogists and...

The New Zealand Family since 1840: A Demographic History.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... The New Zealand Family since 1840: A Demographic History. By Ian Pool, Arunachalam Dharmalingam, and Janet Sceats (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007. 474 pp. $50.00). The New Zealand Family Since 1840 fills a substantial gap in New...

The Vaccinators: Smallpox, Medical Knowledge, and the 'Opening of Japan.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... The Vaccinators: Smallpox, Medical Knowledge, and the 'Opening of Japan. By Ann Jannetta (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007. xviii plus 245 pp.). In the arresting oil painting reproduced on the cover of this hook, a Japanese doctor...

When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa. By Didier Fassin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. xxiv plus 365 pp.). Didier Fassin's When Bodies Remember focuses on a notorious controversy in South...

Medical Charlatanism in Early Modem Italy.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Medical Charlatanism in Early Modem Italy. By David Gentilcore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. xv+426 pp.). From its very page, David Gentilcore's study asserts, and then demonstrates, that the group noted in the title were not...

Qigong Fever; Body, Science, and Utopia in China.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Qigong Fever; Body, Science, and Utopia in China. By David A. Palmer (New York: Columbia University Press, xii plus 356 pp. $34.00). For most non-Chinese, qigong is a mysterious exercise that combines patterned breathing and movement in...

Politics of the Sword: Dueling, Honor, and Masculinity in Modern Italy.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Politics of the Sword: Dueling, Honor, and Masculinity in Modern Italy. By Steven C. Hughes (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2007. xiv plus 360 pp.). Steven Hughes' book on honor and politics in the founding of the Italian state...

Certain Other Countries. Homicide, Gender and National Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Certain Other Countries. Homicide, Gender and National Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. By Carolyn A. Conley (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007. ix plus 255 pp. $49.95). Most historic...

Sexuality, Politics, and Social Control in Virginia, 1920-1945.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Sexuality, Politics, and Social Control in Virginia, 1920-1945. By Pippa Holloway (Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. xi plus 258 pp.). Pippa Holloway begins her book with a deceptively simple premise--that interrogating...

Pauvrete, Culture et Qrdre Social: Recueil d' articles.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Pauvrete, Culture et Qrdre Social: Recueil d' articles. By Jean-Pierre Gut-ton (Collection Chretiens et Societes, Documents et Memoires, No 3. Lyon: Lahoratoire de recherche historique Rhone-Alpes, Univer-site jean Moulin, 2006. 446 pp. 25...

These Days of Large Things: The Culture of Size in America, 1865-1930.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... These Days of Large Things: The Culture of Size in America, 1865-1930. By Michael Tavel Clarke (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. 1 plus 326 pp. $65). Americans may have always worshipped bigness, but according to this...

City of American Dreams: A History of Home Ownership and Housing Reform in Chicago, 1871-1919.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... City of American Dreams: A History of Home Ownership and Housing Reform in Chicago, 1871-1919. By Margaret Garb (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. xv plus 261 pp. $40). How did suburban-style home-ownership come to be seen as an...

The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England. By John Styles (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007-xi plus 432 pp. $50.00). In 1760 a London horse breaker was accused of having stolen a Holland...

Clothing Gandhi's Nation: Homespun and Modem India.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Clothing Gandhi's Nation: Homespun and Modem India. By Lisa Trivedi (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007. xxvi plus 205 pp. $29.95). Lisa Trivedi's book is a useful addition to the literature on how symbols of...

The Notables and the Nation: The Political Schooling of the French, 1787-1 788.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... The Notables and the Nation: The Political Schooling of the French, 1787-1 788. By Vivian Gruder (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.x plus 495 pp. $59.95). This hook offers a thorough account and a compelling analysis of the...

Migration in History: Human Migration in Comparative Perspective.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Migration in History: Human Migration in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Marc S. Rodriguez and Anthony Grafton (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007. xviii plus 262 pp. $75.00). The transnational and interdisciplinary nature at...

Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia. By Valerie Kivelson (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006. xiv plus 263 pp.). "'Here we are, Caroline!' [Pa] said. 'Right here we'll build our...

Catholic Activism in South-West France, 1540-1570.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Catholic Activism in South-West France, 1540-1570. By Kevin Gould (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006. viii plus 190 pp. $99.95). This hook is a study of the rise of political militancy of urban elites and nobles in southwestern France in...