Pub Date : 2025-12-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.007
Vasily Borovoy
This article proposes a novel interpretation of the European North of Russia as an arena of timber colonialism of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It does so by looking at the formative decades of the regional timber economy when it grew increasingly connected to and dependent on the European timber markets. This article studies the composition of the regional population and forests, legal regimes of governance, occupational structure, rising inequality, intermediaries, and the early Soviet continuum of these developments. I argue that Northern Russia was treated by imperial, public and economic actors as a timber colony, while colonialism was provided in great diversity of forms depending on the composition of population, legal regimes, skill sets, and resources at stake. By doing so, the empire and capitalism co-created each other in the colonial setting of a commodity frontier – a timber frontier in the case of the European North of Russia. This article also tests the usability of the colonial approach to the study of a region otherwise lacking the formal properties of a colony.
{"title":"The European North of Russia as a timber colony, 1890–1930","authors":"Vasily Borovoy","doi":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article proposes a novel interpretation of the European North of Russia as an arena of timber colonialism of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It does so by looking at the formative decades of the regional timber economy when it grew increasingly connected to and dependent on the European timber markets. This article studies the composition of the regional population and forests, legal regimes of governance, occupational structure, rising inequality, intermediaries, and the early Soviet continuum of these developments. I argue that Northern Russia was treated by imperial, public and economic actors as a timber colony, while colonialism was provided in great diversity of forms depending on the composition of population, legal regimes, skill sets, and resources at stake. By doing so, the empire and capitalism co-created each other in the colonial setting of a commodity frontier – a timber frontier in the case of the European North of Russia. This article also tests the usability of the colonial approach to the study of a region otherwise lacking the formal properties of a colony.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47094,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Geography","volume":"91 ","pages":"Pages 63-72"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145786061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-11DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2025.10.009
Joseph Day
Studies of internal migration in nineteenth-century Britain invariably model employment as the principal force of attraction, yet the male breadwinner economy of the period largely stigmatised female employment, limiting women's work to low-productivity, low-paid occupations, instead prioritising male employment. This paper therefore reassesses the determinants of female migration, and questions whether, in the absence of good employment opportunities, women instead pursed migration strategies that maximised their chances of being matched with a well-paid spouse. The analysis shows that women viewed marriage and work as substitutes for one another and therefore, if employment prospects attracted migrants, so too must marriage prospects. By adopting a spatial approach, this study finds that the drivers of migration were gendered, and that while men were almost invariably attracted by employment prospects, whether women were similarly attracted by employment opportunities was context dependent. Whereas well-paid work attracted some women to places like London, well-paid men attracted other women to mining communities. However, it is also shown that such migration flows were not necessarily evidence of an innate preference for marriage, but of an absence of alternatives. Therefore, whether female migration was a response to marriage prospects, depended on whether female migrants perceived alternative employment opportunities.
{"title":"Marriage is hard work: Re-evaluating the determinants of female migration in the male breadwinner economy of England and Wales, 1851–1911","authors":"Joseph Day","doi":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.10.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.10.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Studies of internal migration in nineteenth-century Britain invariably model employment as the principal force of attraction, yet the male breadwinner economy of the period largely stigmatised female employment, limiting women's work to low-productivity, low-paid occupations, instead prioritising male employment. This paper therefore reassesses the determinants of female migration, and questions whether, in the absence of good employment opportunities, women instead pursed migration strategies that maximised their chances of being matched with a well-paid spouse. The analysis shows that women viewed marriage and work as substitutes for one another and therefore, if employment prospects attracted migrants, so too must marriage prospects. By adopting a spatial approach, this study finds that the drivers of migration were gendered, and that while men were almost invariably attracted by employment prospects, whether women were similarly attracted by employment opportunities was context dependent. Whereas well-paid work attracted some women to places like London, well-paid men attracted other women to mining communities. However, it is also shown that such migration flows were not necessarily evidence of an innate preference for marriage, but of an absence of alternatives. Therefore, whether female migration was a response to marriage prospects, depended on whether female migrants perceived alternative employment opportunities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47094,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Geography","volume":"91 ","pages":"Pages 37-55"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145732607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-10DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.005
Richard Warren
In 1831 and 1835 CE, two massive eruptions - one in the far northeast of Japan and the other in central America - sent vast plumes of sulfur into the atmosphere, forming a layer of aerosols that reached around the globe. In the following years, drought and devastating famine visited vast tracts of India, leading to reported deaths of over a million people. Employing a novel systems approach to analyse historical causality, this study shows how volcanism, climate and society - especially the ruling British East India Company - contributed to the Madras (1832–1833) and Agra (1836–1838) famines. The latest climate reanalysis and reconstruction data shows that the two volcanic eruptions combined with an El Niño climate oscillation in 1833 to trigger disastrous monsoon failures. When the rains failed, a vulnerable populace, weakened by colonial environmental degradation and over-taxation, was left at the mercy of a company more interested in profits and revenue than the wellbeing of its subjects. In combination with free market ideology, local monopolists and colonial prejudice, this let the crisis spiral out of control, leading to disease, starvation and horrific loss of life. As a historical case study, the Madras and Agra famines are therefore particularly relevant to contemporary discussions of climate change, economics, food systems and famine policy.
{"title":"Climate, crisis, and colonialism: Volcanic eruptions and the causes of famine in British India, 1831 to 1838","authors":"Richard Warren","doi":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In 1831 and 1835 CE, two massive eruptions - one in the far northeast of Japan and the other in central America - sent vast plumes of sulfur into the atmosphere, forming a layer of aerosols that reached around the globe. In the following years, drought and devastating famine visited vast tracts of India, leading to reported deaths of over a million people. Employing a novel systems approach to analyse historical causality, this study shows how volcanism, climate and society - especially the ruling British East India Company - contributed to the Madras (1832–1833) and Agra (1836–1838) famines. The latest climate reanalysis and reconstruction data shows that the two volcanic eruptions combined with an El Niño climate oscillation in 1833 to trigger disastrous monsoon failures. When the rains failed, a vulnerable populace, weakened by colonial environmental degradation and over-taxation, was left at the mercy of a company more interested in profits and revenue than the wellbeing of its subjects. In combination with free market ideology, local monopolists and colonial prejudice, this let the crisis spiral out of control, leading to disease, starvation and horrific loss of life. As a historical case study, the Madras and Agra famines are therefore particularly relevant to contemporary discussions of climate change, economics, food systems and famine policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47094,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Geography","volume":"91 ","pages":"Pages 18-36"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145730961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-04DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.008
Lotte Jensen , Adriaan Duiveman
This article proposes a novel theoretical framework for the study of cultural resilience in the context of historical disasters. Defined as the cultural practices by which communities cope with current calamities, past disasters, and possible future threats, cultural resilience can be divided into four basic elements: sense-making, charity, commemoration, and – as a result of the previous three – community building. We further distinguish both social and temporal dimensions. The social dimension pertains directly to those communities involved with the disaster, whereas the temporal dimension refers to the way in which sense-making, charity, and commemorative practices relate, not only to the past and the present, but also the future. The framework is illustrated with two historical case studies: eighteenth-century conflagrations – the devastating fires that befell several Dutch towns – and the 1953 North Sea Flood.
{"title":"Cultural resilience and coping with disasters in the past. A theoretical framework","authors":"Lotte Jensen , Adriaan Duiveman","doi":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jhg.2025.11.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article proposes a novel theoretical framework for the study of cultural resilience in the context of historical disasters. Defined as the cultural practices by which communities cope with current calamities, past disasters, and possible future threats, cultural resilience can be divided into four basic elements: sense-making, charity, commemoration, and – as a result of the previous three – community building. We further distinguish both social and temporal dimensions. The social dimension pertains directly to those communities involved with the disaster, whereas the temporal dimension refers to the way in which sense-making, charity, and commemorative practices relate, not only to the past and the present, but also the future. The framework is illustrated with two historical case studies: eighteenth-century conflagrations – the devastating fires that befell several Dutch towns – and the 1953 North Sea Flood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47094,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Geography","volume":"91 ","pages":"Pages 7-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145689440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}