Pub Date : 2023-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2246828
Peter Michael Scott
The 1950s was a pivotal decade for Britain’s entertainment industries, with the rapid diffusion of television and sharp declines for hitherto dominant urban venue entertainments. This had important social consequences, including the acceleration of the trend from community-based socialising to more sedentary, family-based, entertainment – the last essential component of the ‘industrialisation of the home’. However, the disruptive impact of television varied considerably among different incumbent urban entertainments, with variety theatre and cinema facing catastrophic declines, while spectator sports and dance halls continued to flourish. This article examines television’s differential impact on incumbent entertainments using a variety of new sources, including Customs and Excise data; unpublished government social surveys; and trade sources. The differential impact of television on incumbent entertainments can be largely explained by the degree of ‘commitment’ demanded of consumers for different leisure activities; the degree to which television was a strong substitute; the presence of addictive elements (gambling); and the extent to which the activity appealed to a youth audience. However, the rapid collapse of variety theatre and cinema can only be fully explained by television enabling strong latent preferences for commercial entertainment in the home, which were now satisfied by television.
{"title":"Not going out: television’s impacts on Britain’s commercial entertainment industries and popular leisure during the 1950s","authors":"Peter Michael Scott","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2246828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2246828","url":null,"abstract":"The 1950s was a pivotal decade for Britain’s entertainment industries, with the rapid diffusion of television and sharp declines for hitherto dominant urban venue entertainments. This had important social consequences, including the acceleration of the trend from community-based socialising to more sedentary, family-based, entertainment – the last essential component of the ‘industrialisation of the home’. However, the disruptive impact of television varied considerably among different incumbent urban entertainments, with variety theatre and cinema facing catastrophic declines, while spectator sports and dance halls continued to flourish. This article examines television’s differential impact on incumbent entertainments using a variety of new sources, including Customs and Excise data; unpublished government social surveys; and trade sources. The differential impact of television on incumbent entertainments can be largely explained by the degree of ‘commitment’ demanded of consumers for different leisure activities; the degree to which television was a strong substitute; the presence of addictive elements (gambling); and the extent to which the activity appealed to a youth audience. However, the rapid collapse of variety theatre and cinema can only be fully explained by television enabling strong latent preferences for commercial entertainment in the home, which were now satisfied by television.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"154 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135901353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2257103
David Hope
indispensably requisite in persons that makes wise choyce in marriadge’ (12). One of the most important and illuminating elements of Gwin’s commonplace book, however, is his inclusion of medical remedies and references to contemporary ideas about the body and illness. During the early modern period, theories about the body, illness and health were in constant flux as older humoral understandings were interwoven with emerging ideas rooted in new scientific discoveries. Indeed, Gwin includes a wide variety of medical notes and recipes that are rooted in both the traditional, humoral ideologies that often incorporated religious and astronomical elements, and those posited by reformist-minded practitioners like George Starkey who sought to challenge the Galenic hegemony of the Royal College of Physicians (35). It is the richness of Gwin’s medical entries that prompts Gray et al. to describe his commonplace book as one of the most important medical sources pertaining to early modern Wales. The editors’ presentation of Gwin’s commonplace book maintains the original spellings and Welsh vernacular (with translations and definitions provided) and replicates the original layout and formatting as faithfully as is possible in print. This allows the physicality of the book to be intimated, allowing the reader to feel closer to it as a primary source that was touched and engaged with. Indeed, the editors’ frequent references to the number of hands that are evident on each page indicates the book’s repeated use even after Gwin’s death and conveys important information about the book as a domestic tool as well as a collection of writings. The Commonplace Book of John Gwin of Llangwm will appeal to those with an interest in the machinations of life in seventeenth-century Wales as it provides insight into themes such as early modern masculinity, domesticity, husbandry and medicine, as well as faith, family and social networks. Thus, despite Gwin declaring (via his poetry) that ‘even such is man whoe lives by breath, is here nowe there soe life soe death’, Gray, Hopkins and Withey’s reproduction of his writing has ensured that his thoughts, beliefs and daily experiences are preserved in perpetuity and widely accessible.
{"title":"Fur: a sensitive history <b>Fur: a sensitive history</b> , by Jonathan Faiers, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2020, 240 pp., £40.00/$60.00 (hardcover), ISBN-13: 978-0-300-227208","authors":"David Hope","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2257103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2257103","url":null,"abstract":"indispensably requisite in persons that makes wise choyce in marriadge’ (12). One of the most important and illuminating elements of Gwin’s commonplace book, however, is his inclusion of medical remedies and references to contemporary ideas about the body and illness. During the early modern period, theories about the body, illness and health were in constant flux as older humoral understandings were interwoven with emerging ideas rooted in new scientific discoveries. Indeed, Gwin includes a wide variety of medical notes and recipes that are rooted in both the traditional, humoral ideologies that often incorporated religious and astronomical elements, and those posited by reformist-minded practitioners like George Starkey who sought to challenge the Galenic hegemony of the Royal College of Physicians (35). It is the richness of Gwin’s medical entries that prompts Gray et al. to describe his commonplace book as one of the most important medical sources pertaining to early modern Wales. The editors’ presentation of Gwin’s commonplace book maintains the original spellings and Welsh vernacular (with translations and definitions provided) and replicates the original layout and formatting as faithfully as is possible in print. This allows the physicality of the book to be intimated, allowing the reader to feel closer to it as a primary source that was touched and engaged with. Indeed, the editors’ frequent references to the number of hands that are evident on each page indicates the book’s repeated use even after Gwin’s death and conveys important information about the book as a domestic tool as well as a collection of writings. The Commonplace Book of John Gwin of Llangwm will appeal to those with an interest in the machinations of life in seventeenth-century Wales as it provides insight into themes such as early modern masculinity, domesticity, husbandry and medicine, as well as faith, family and social networks. Thus, despite Gwin declaring (via his poetry) that ‘even such is man whoe lives by breath, is here nowe there soe life soe death’, Gray, Hopkins and Withey’s reproduction of his writing has ensured that his thoughts, beliefs and daily experiences are preserved in perpetuity and widely accessible.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135901352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2246800
Felicita Tramontana
Through an analysis of the network associated with the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, this article challenges overly positive narratives of early modern mobility and of the role played by networks more generally. It reconstructs the functioning of the Franciscan network, focusing on its ‘immobile infrastructure’ and showing how the latter facilitated and at the same time controlled and limited friars’ movement. Building on this analysis, the article postulates the existence of an ‘organisational migration infrastructure’, which enabled, addressed and controlled people’s movement according to organisations’ interests. The article also suggests a new methodological approach to the study of early modern networks, centring its analysis on ‘organisational migrants’ and using the notion of ‘infrastructure’ as an analytical tool. From a wider perspective, the article deepens our general understanding of early modern mobility, particularly with regard to the role of networks and organisations, and to the entanglement of mobility, immobility, control and exclusion.
{"title":"Facilitating, controlling and excluding from movement: religious orders, organizational networks and mobility infrastructure in the early modern Mediterranean","authors":"Felicita Tramontana","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2246800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2246800","url":null,"abstract":"Through an analysis of the network associated with the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, this article challenges overly positive narratives of early modern mobility and of the role played by networks more generally. It reconstructs the functioning of the Franciscan network, focusing on its ‘immobile infrastructure’ and showing how the latter facilitated and at the same time controlled and limited friars’ movement. Building on this analysis, the article postulates the existence of an ‘organisational migration infrastructure’, which enabled, addressed and controlled people’s movement according to organisations’ interests. The article also suggests a new methodological approach to the study of early modern networks, centring its analysis on ‘organisational migrants’ and using the notion of ‘infrastructure’ as an analytical tool. From a wider perspective, the article deepens our general understanding of early modern mobility, particularly with regard to the role of networks and organisations, and to the entanglement of mobility, immobility, control and exclusion.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135901348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2211440
Ryan Shaffer
newspaper editors and reporters to print ‘fake’ news, a Victorian phenomenon extensively studied by historians and by no means an innovation of the twenty-first century. Fisher-Høyrem needed to be as concerned with critically examining immutability as he was with mobility. Nevertheless, the case studies are very well synthesised, and the vast and diverse historiography is presented in an engaging manner. Even the rather complex narrative of the origin of banknotes (Chapter 5) is presented in a manner accessible to readers without a background in complicated monetary history. His argument that this technological artefact helped to solve what economic historians would call the ‘timeinconsistency’ problem by rendering public debt an economic entity in perpetuity is very well explained. If we disregard the author’s tendency to often repeat how the networks examined ‘mediated secular time independent of motion’, then this book is eminently readable.
报纸编辑和记者印刷“假”新闻,这是维多利亚时代的现象,被历史学家广泛研究,绝不是21世纪的创新。fisher - h - yrem需要对不变性进行批判性的检查,就像他对流动性一样。尽管如此,这些案例研究都是很好的综合,并且以一种引人入胜的方式呈现了大量多样的历史。即使是关于纸币起源的相当复杂的叙述(第5章),也以一种没有复杂货币历史背景的读者可以理解的方式呈现。他的观点是,通过将公共债务变成一个永久的经济实体,这种技术产物有助于解决经济历史学家所谓的“时间不一致性”问题,这一点得到了很好的解释。如果我们忽略作者经常重复网络如何检查“独立于运动的中介世俗时间”的倾向,那么这本书是非常值得一读的。
{"title":"The Modern British Data State, 1945–2000","authors":"Ryan Shaffer","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2211440","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2211440","url":null,"abstract":"newspaper editors and reporters to print ‘fake’ news, a Victorian phenomenon extensively studied by historians and by no means an innovation of the twenty-first century. Fisher-Høyrem needed to be as concerned with critically examining immutability as he was with mobility. Nevertheless, the case studies are very well synthesised, and the vast and diverse historiography is presented in an engaging manner. Even the rather complex narrative of the origin of banknotes (Chapter 5) is presented in a manner accessible to readers without a background in complicated monetary history. His argument that this technological artefact helped to solve what economic historians would call the ‘timeinconsistency’ problem by rendering public debt an economic entity in perpetuity is very well explained. If we disregard the author’s tendency to often repeat how the networks examined ‘mediated secular time independent of motion’, then this book is eminently readable.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"35 1","pages":"390 - 392"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77868542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2213980
J. Phillips
ABSTRACT The transition out of coal production in Scotland was managed carefully in the 1960s and 1970s, prioritising workforce voice and communal security. Under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative governments in the 1980s, the position changed abruptly. Colliery closures and redundancies accelerated; miners and coal communities were subject to political attack. The criminalisation and victimisation of union officials and activists during the 1984–1985 strike against pit closures was disproportionately greater in Scotland than in England and Wales. The oral history testimony of strike veterans provides a powerful narrative of historical unfairness, imposed by a hostile anti-union government, National Coal Board officials, police officers and sheriffs. Their stories of injustice on picket lines and in communities nevertheless qualify a tendency in oral histories of deindustrialisation to pessimism and loss. Strike veterans spoke positively about the strike and its political meaning. Their memories constitute a usable past, present in subsequent campaigning. The Miners’ Strike (Pardons) Act, passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2022, was an important outcome, making provision for the collective and posthumous pardon of people with strike-related convictions from 1984–1985.
{"title":"Injustice, deindustrialisation and the 1984–1985 Miners’ Strike in Scotland","authors":"J. Phillips","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2213980","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2213980","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The transition out of coal production in Scotland was managed carefully in the 1960s and 1970s, prioritising workforce voice and communal security. Under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative governments in the 1980s, the position changed abruptly. Colliery closures and redundancies accelerated; miners and coal communities were subject to political attack. The criminalisation and victimisation of union officials and activists during the 1984–1985 strike against pit closures was disproportionately greater in Scotland than in England and Wales. The oral history testimony of strike veterans provides a powerful narrative of historical unfairness, imposed by a hostile anti-union government, National Coal Board officials, police officers and sheriffs. Their stories of injustice on picket lines and in communities nevertheless qualify a tendency in oral histories of deindustrialisation to pessimism and loss. Strike veterans spoke positively about the strike and its political meaning. Their memories constitute a usable past, present in subsequent campaigning. The Miners’ Strike (Pardons) Act, passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2022, was an important outcome, making provision for the collective and posthumous pardon of people with strike-related convictions from 1984–1985.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"39 1","pages":"363 - 388"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81669766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2213931
J. Stobart
ABSTRACT Eighteenth-century consumption is often characterised in terms of an expanding world of goods, one that reflected an increasingly complex web of global trading links and cultural associations. Some have seen a growing role for empire in shaping the provision of goods and the consciousness of consumers, especially in terms of groceries and textiles; others have argued that Europe, especially Italy and France, was predominant in the minds of retailers and their customers. In this article, I build on these studies by exploring the placenames with which a wide range of groceries and textiles were labelled in stock lists, newspaper advertisements and receipted bills. My concern is to examine the varied meanings that these placenames carried for retailers and consumers: sometimes indicating provenance, but often overlaying this with messages about the material qualities of the products. Rather than mapping actual patterns of supply, therefore, the analysis opens up the mental geographies that helped shopkeepers and consumers to comprehend the world of goods available to them. In doing so, it provides important insights into England’s changing position in the eighteenth-century world.
{"title":"A world of goods? Europe, empire and consumer goods in England, c. 1670–1820","authors":"J. Stobart","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2213931","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2213931","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Eighteenth-century consumption is often characterised in terms of an expanding world of goods, one that reflected an increasingly complex web of global trading links and cultural associations. Some have seen a growing role for empire in shaping the provision of goods and the consciousness of consumers, especially in terms of groceries and textiles; others have argued that Europe, especially Italy and France, was predominant in the minds of retailers and their customers. In this article, I build on these studies by exploring the placenames with which a wide range of groceries and textiles were labelled in stock lists, newspaper advertisements and receipted bills. My concern is to examine the varied meanings that these placenames carried for retailers and consumers: sometimes indicating provenance, but often overlaying this with messages about the material qualities of the products. Rather than mapping actual patterns of supply, therefore, the analysis opens up the mental geographies that helped shopkeepers and consumers to comprehend the world of goods available to them. In doing so, it provides important insights into England’s changing position in the eighteenth-century world.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"1 1","pages":"295 - 315"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82379993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2213949
J. Damousi
ABSTRACT In this article I argue that the actual and imaginary presence of America looms large in the letters written to Eleanor Roosevelt by refugee children whom she sponsored through the organisation Foster Parents’ Plan for War Children (Plan). In doing so, I historicise the politics of emotion in war by examining how the concept of ‘America’ provided a positive haven for refugee children who constructed an imaginary ‘America’ – a place of security and peace – through which they discussed the fragmentation of their lives. When considering the visceral aspects of wartime experience, however, not all children found comfort in the ‘American’ imaginary. The letters of children such as eight-year-old Rosemary Hayward – who was also observed by psychoanalysts Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham – reveal an emotional fragility towards this notion of ‘America’. The comfort and plenty of ‘America’ was not easily appropriated by Hayward as the way in which she experienced family dislocation became pronounced. While the emotional security of the concept of ‘America’ became the cornerstone of correspondence between financial foster parents and the refugee child, it served to consolidate this exchange and the politics within it, leaving the scars of family disruption and violence in war painfully unresolved.
{"title":"‘Dear Aunty Eleanor’: Eleanor Roosevelt, Anna Freud and the politics of emotion in letters by children in war","authors":"J. Damousi","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2213949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2213949","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this article I argue that the actual and imaginary presence of America looms large in the letters written to Eleanor Roosevelt by refugee children whom she sponsored through the organisation Foster Parents’ Plan for War Children (Plan). In doing so, I historicise the politics of emotion in war by examining how the concept of ‘America’ provided a positive haven for refugee children who constructed an imaginary ‘America’ – a place of security and peace – through which they discussed the fragmentation of their lives. When considering the visceral aspects of wartime experience, however, not all children found comfort in the ‘American’ imaginary. The letters of children such as eight-year-old Rosemary Hayward – who was also observed by psychoanalysts Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham – reveal an emotional fragility towards this notion of ‘America’. The comfort and plenty of ‘America’ was not easily appropriated by Hayward as the way in which she experienced family dislocation became pronounced. While the emotional security of the concept of ‘America’ became the cornerstone of correspondence between financial foster parents and the refugee child, it served to consolidate this exchange and the politics within it, leaving the scars of family disruption and violence in war painfully unresolved.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"19 1","pages":"338 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84519106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2213933
Íñigo Ena Sanjuán
ABSTRACT In south-western Europe, the transition from pre-modern polities to modern states started in the central decades of the eighteenth century. This article explores why and how the plural, judicial and polycentric practices that structured social and political life before circa 1750 were progressively replaced by more unified, administrative and hierarchical repertoires of practices. The article rethinks the formation of the state through the conflicts over the debt of four municipalities of the former Crown of Aragon in the monarchies of Spain, the Savoy and the Two Sicilies. The global wars of the mid-eighteenth century and the subsequent extraordinary fiscal pressure fuelled local conflicts that led to the collapse of the ancient practices that structured life in common. However, the new social and political arrangements that were born out of the ancient polities and started replacing them were not imposed from above, but rather ideated, negotiated and implemented by a myriad of local actors and corporations. The article asserts that local realities were much more complex and polyhedric than what has traditionally been stated. As in other European regions, in the south-western polities of the Old Continent the modern state also emerged, first and foremost, from below.
{"title":"The collapse of a polity, the birth of states: municipal debt, local conflicts and state formation in the former Crown of Aragon (1740–1770)","authors":"Íñigo Ena Sanjuán","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2213933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2213933","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In south-western Europe, the transition from pre-modern polities to modern states started in the central decades of the eighteenth century. This article explores why and how the plural, judicial and polycentric practices that structured social and political life before circa 1750 were progressively replaced by more unified, administrative and hierarchical repertoires of practices. The article rethinks the formation of the state through the conflicts over the debt of four municipalities of the former Crown of Aragon in the monarchies of Spain, the Savoy and the Two Sicilies. The global wars of the mid-eighteenth century and the subsequent extraordinary fiscal pressure fuelled local conflicts that led to the collapse of the ancient practices that structured life in common. However, the new social and political arrangements that were born out of the ancient polities and started replacing them were not imposed from above, but rather ideated, negotiated and implemented by a myriad of local actors and corporations. The article asserts that local realities were much more complex and polyhedric than what has traditionally been stated. As in other European regions, in the south-western polities of the Old Continent the modern state also emerged, first and foremost, from below.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"64 1","pages":"316 - 337"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73908403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2211443
Soni Wadhwa
plans were not put into action, ‘the ideas in government.direct were a direct continuation of the thinking that had underpinned all biopolitical population-data gathering since the mid-1960s’ (164). Lastly, Manton returns to the public’s perspectives on the changes, highlighting fears and concerns about data gathering and computerisation, which led to the 1998 Data Protection Act as well as the British government’s reluctance to join the European proposals. Ultimately, Blair’s Labour government mirrored the earlier Conservative governments that were ‘data-driven’, and the ‘hunger’ for information spanned different political ideologies. This book nicely historicises the ‘data state’, showing how it pre-dated the general consumer’s access to computers of the 1980s and beyond. It successfully traces the ‘data-driven turn in British politics’ and demonstrates ‘how the ideas that underpinned this development came to shape thinking across the party-political divide’ (194). The book further highlights the language used by government and the limited knowledge of the public on technology and data. It shows how the framing of the issues under Wilson during the Cold War were similar under Blair during the dot-com era. Manton effectively explores these themes by showing the interrelatedness and contradictions, including the ‘depoliticisation’ in the data-driven approach of the governments, although he does not say so much about its use. Indeed, the book is largely internally focused on policy and debate, and a fair amount of Cold War context and terrorism is under-examined. Surely very real concerns of nuclear war between North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries and the Soviet Union, and transnational as well as state-sponsored terrorism, were important factors in safeguarding Britain. Yet these themes are not significant avenues in the book’s analysis. Nonetheless, this study makes a useful contribution to scholars interested in society’s relationship with government regarding data.
{"title":"Violent Fraternity: Indian political thought in the global age","authors":"Soni Wadhwa","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2211443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2211443","url":null,"abstract":"plans were not put into action, ‘the ideas in government.direct were a direct continuation of the thinking that had underpinned all biopolitical population-data gathering since the mid-1960s’ (164). Lastly, Manton returns to the public’s perspectives on the changes, highlighting fears and concerns about data gathering and computerisation, which led to the 1998 Data Protection Act as well as the British government’s reluctance to join the European proposals. Ultimately, Blair’s Labour government mirrored the earlier Conservative governments that were ‘data-driven’, and the ‘hunger’ for information spanned different political ideologies. This book nicely historicises the ‘data state’, showing how it pre-dated the general consumer’s access to computers of the 1980s and beyond. It successfully traces the ‘data-driven turn in British politics’ and demonstrates ‘how the ideas that underpinned this development came to shape thinking across the party-political divide’ (194). The book further highlights the language used by government and the limited knowledge of the public on technology and data. It shows how the framing of the issues under Wilson during the Cold War were similar under Blair during the dot-com era. Manton effectively explores these themes by showing the interrelatedness and contradictions, including the ‘depoliticisation’ in the data-driven approach of the governments, although he does not say so much about its use. Indeed, the book is largely internally focused on policy and debate, and a fair amount of Cold War context and terrorism is under-examined. Surely very real concerns of nuclear war between North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries and the Soviet Union, and transnational as well as state-sponsored terrorism, were important factors in safeguarding Britain. Yet these themes are not significant avenues in the book’s analysis. Nonetheless, this study makes a useful contribution to scholars interested in society’s relationship with government regarding data.","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"1 1","pages":"392 - 394"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90322985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2023.2211445
J. McDonald
{"title":"Migrant Citizenship: race, rights, and reform in the US farm labor camp program","authors":"J. McDonald","doi":"10.1080/03071022.2023.2211445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2211445","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21866,"journal":{"name":"Social History","volume":"78 1","pages":"394 - 396"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88379719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}