TRADITION AND CHANGE IN MARRIAGE PAYMENTS IN VIETNAM, 1963–2000

This study analyses data from the Vietnam Study of Family Change to document trends and determinants of marriage payments in Vietnam from 1963 to 2000. We investigate the extent to which structural and policy transformations influenced the practice of payments, and estimate how societal changes indirectly impacted payments via their effects on population characteristics. Results indicate that marriage payments surged following market reform, but also reveal nuanced trends during earlier years. While the socialist attempts to eradicate brideprice appear to have been successful in the North before economic renovation, they were unsuccessful in the South. Structural and policy change explained most of the observed variations in payments. The changing characteristics of the married individuals mattered relatively less. We interpret the re-emergence of marriage payments as attesting to the resilience of traditional values and the unravelling of the socialist agenda, but also as a reflection of Vietnam's economic prosperity in the 1990s.     

REFORM AND REVOLUTION IN SCANDINAVIA, 1917–1919

The articles in this special issue, entitled Reform and Revolution in Scandinavia, 1917–1919: Entangled Histories and Visions of the Future, deal with the political turmoil in Scandinavia in the late 1910s, accelerated by the First World War and the revolutions in Russia in February/March and October/November 1917 and eventually in Germany in the autumn of 1918. Their special focus is on the political debates about reform and revolution and the related visions of the future of political order and social structures in national contexts and across borders. The articles examine how actors with different agendas in different contexts exploited the opportunities opened up by a window of change. None of the Scandinavian countries were directly involved in the theatre of war, but the whole of Scandinavia was associated with the hostilities in many other ways. The revolutionary processes in Russia affected Finland directly but – reflecting the events spreading from Petrograd – the debates about the legitimacy of the established political order intensified in all Scandinavian countries. The articles demonstrate how the debates and political processes took diverse forms in varying national contexts but were often more dependent on international relations, transnationally interconnected and entangled, than has traditionally been recognized in nation-state-centred historiographies.     

THE POLITICS OF DISINTEREST: THE WHIGS AND THE LIBERAL PARTY IN THE WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE, 1830–1850

Abstract

Having entered the 1960s in a mood of confident expansion epitomized by the Robbins Report of 1963, British universities found their budgets ravaged by inflation in the early 1970s and struggled for financial equilibrium over the next three decades. While the 'unit of resource' halved between 1976 and the end of the century, the very nature of a university came into question as renewed growth succeeded cuts in the 1980s, and institutions were required to balance their books by supplementing the traditional functions of teaching and research with a contribution to 'knowledge transfer', local regeneration, and the search for social inclusiveness. In this increasingly competitive system, the 'big civics' faced the spectre of relative decline in the 1990s, as the State continued to support the elite 'golden triangle' and diverted further funds to support struggling 'new' universities, while smaller 'plate glass' institutions were swifter to respond to a new culture of public league tables. This article examines the University of Leeds's changing responses to these challenges, comparing the 'political' leadership of Vice-Chancellors Lord Boyle and Sir Edward Parkes with the managerial approach of Professor Sir Alan Wilson.     

FAMILY SYSTEMS,POLITICAL SYSTEMS AND ASIA'S ‘MISSING GIRLS’

China, South Korea and northwest India manifest extreme child sex ratios. This paper argues that this is because their pre-modern political and administrative systems used patrilineages to organise their citizens, generating uniquely rigid patriliny and son preference. It also argues that the advent of the modern state has unravelled the underpinnings of the rigid patriliny, unleashing forces that reduce son preference. Firstly, the modern state has powerful tools for managing its citizenry, rendering patrilineages a threat rather than an asset for the state. Secondly, the modern state has brought in political, social and legal reforms aimed to challenge traditional hierarchies, including those of gender. Thirdly, industrialisation and urbanisation have ushered in new modes of social organisation, which reduce the hold of clans and lineages. Studies suggest that states can accelerate the decline in son preference, through media efforts to help parents perceive that daughters can now be as valuable as sons.     

THE SOVIET FAR EAST: A REPORT ON URBAN AND RURAL SETTLEMENT AND POPULATION CHANGE, 1966–1989

This article provides a general overview of trends in urban-rural population change and evolution of the settlement system in the Soviet Far East since 1966, incorporating data published in the recent national statistical yearbooks and the preliminary 1989 census report (Pravda, April 29, 1989, p. 2). Total population in the Soviet Far East increased from 5,435,000 in 1966 to 7,941,000 by January 12, 1989, with the share of the urban population now comprising over three-quarters of the total. Migration patterns into and out of the region are discussed and cities planned for expansion are identified.     

LETTER WRITING AND ELITE IDENTITY IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1770–1850

This essay argues that correspondence was an important means for the Dutch elite in the period 1770–1850 to develop, consolidate and express an elite identity. Children were taught a “natural” epistolary style, which often meant “decent” or “as fits an elite child”. In line with Bourdieu's thesis that elites are so confident of their leading position that they feel free to deviate from language norms, adolescents diverged from decent language, whereas lower‐class correspondents composed humble letters to their superiors. Daily correspondence and ceremonial letters served to keep upper‐class values in mind and to hold the elite together.     

TRADES,CRAFTS AND CREDIT IN A VICTORIAN VILLAGE: A TRADING FAMILY IN MILFORD,SURREY, 1851–1881

Abstract

Blacksmith James Luck’s papers indicate a complex web of credit in Milford, a small Surrey village, in the mid-Victorian era. His family benefited from contacts secured through loans, with the wider rural economy clearly depending on payment for goods and services being stretched over a long period of time. Despite the rise of banks and a national communications system, local knowledge and trust continued to be of significance. Local traders and their customers relied heavily on credit so it was important that the great majority of their transactions were sound. The records of James Luck illuminate this under-appreciated but significant aspect of 19th-century British family and community history.     

ASPECTS OF DOMESTIC SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, 1841–1911

Abstract

Domestic service has been neglected by historians until comparatively recently. Partly the lack of attention has been due to the paucity of sources – although these tend to emerge when interest grows – and a lack of interest in women’s history. Some research has, however, been done and here a number of recent studies are discussed. These relate to the geographical origins of the servants employed in the six houses occupied by the 7^th Duke of Devonshire at the censuses of 1861-91; the changes in servant-keeping experienced by two upper-middle-class owners of a house in Hertfordshire, in the late 19^th century; aspects of ‘kin’ and ‘true’ servants in the Scottish textile town of Kilmarnock as revealed by the 1871 census; and some features of domestic servants working at the Roman Catholic seminary of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland, based upon the household schedules of the 1911 census and a wages book

These and other studies reveal that it is from local, micro-level research that the most fruitful insights into the experience of domestic service in the past are likely to emerge. This is, in part, because of the variety of that experience; in part, because that is where the sources are to be found; and, in part, because the sources often require a local interpretation. For example, work on the census enumerators’ books is revealing that each 19^th-century census is best seen as a series of local censuses, often reflecting local interpretations of standard questions.     

OPÉRA-COMIQUE,CULTURAL POLITICS AND IDENTITY IN SCANDINAVIA 1760–1800

As a contribution to the history of public life and cultural practice, this article examines the political and social implications of the fondness for French comic opera in Scandinavia between 1760 and 1800. The urban elites’ interest in opéra-comique is examined as a part of the self-fashioning processes of mimetism and distinction, but also as a way to consolidate the community. Opéra-comique was promoted by the literary and diplomatic elites. It became important for the cultural politics of the Scandinavian monarchies as well as for intellectual milieus able to propose alternative models for life in society. The appropriation of opéra-comique by an expanding public transformed the nature of the supposedly aristocratic and cosmopolitan genre, which became an element in the defining of new bourgeois and patriotic identities. With a cross-disciplinary and transnational perspective on eighteenth-century Northern Europe, the article underscores the links between politics, patronage and literary sociability, and shows that opera and music, in eighteenth-century Scandinavia, were much more than artistic issues.     

The main components of the situation in Poland: 1980–1983

The paper consists of five parts. Part I describes the situation on the eve of martial law. Its main conclusion says: The release of this enormous tension could be achieved only through free elections, but it was absolutely clear that such a solution, tantamount to the total surrender of Communism in Poland, would never be accepted by the Russians’.

Part II describes the evolution of the system of ‘partocracy’ in Poland from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. This evolution consisted in the gradual de‐ideologization of the party and the consequent change in the basic principle of legitimation. In the beginning it legitimized its rule by the Marxist theory of historical progress, in later years this was replaced by invoking the objective interests of the nation in given historical conditions. A positive feature of this development was the de‐ideologization of many spheres of life; this, however, did not entail their de‐politicization, in the sense of replacing changing and arbitrary political commands by stable and general rules of law. In the economic sphere it resulted in a series of irresponsible decisions, the rule of fiction and widespread corruption.

Part III deals with some features of the historically‐formed national character of the Poles, concluding that it was peculiarly uncongenial to Soviet‐type socialism.

Part IV describes the attitudes of the main strata of the population. It shows the Solidarity movement as a populist movement, often anti‐socialist at a conscious level but almost always deeply socialist at an unconscious one. The author sees the main contradiction of this movement in the fact that its hostility towards ‘really existing socialism’ as a political system was not combined with a readiness to accept a consistent de‐politicization of the economy, i.e. the replacement of political commands by market mechanisms. The author also shows the plight of the Polish peasantry and the attitudes dominant among the intelligentsia.

The last part, ‘The Effects of Martial Law and the Prospects for the Future’, presents the efforts of Jaruzelski's government to introduce economic reform and to base its rule on the principle of ‘socialist constitutionalism’. The author is pessimistic about the chances of economic reform and stresses the necessity of a minimum of political and moral consensus. He concludes: ‘The experiment in participatory democracy and in dual power has failed, but the only acceptable alternative is the greatest possible liberalization’.     

ARISTOCRATIC WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY: SWEDEN, 1750–1900

The role of the European nobility and their ability to retain their political and economic power are part of the debate on the modernization of Europe’s economy. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the wealth of the Swedish nobility as the country evolved from an agrarian to an industrial economy. We use a sample of 200+ probate inventories of nobles for each of the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900. We show that the nobility, less than 0.5 per cent of the population, was markedly dominant in 1750: the average noble was 60 times richer than the average person, and the nobles held 29 per cent of all private wealth. 90 per cent of the nobles were richer than the average person. By 1900 the advantage of the nobles’ wealth had declined; the group held only 5 per cent of total private wealth. At the same time, stratification within the nobility had increased dramatically. One group of super-rich Swedish nobles, often large land owners from the high nobility, possessed the biggest fortunes, but a large minority of nobles were no richer than the average Swede.     

CUNEIFORM IN CANAAN： HISTORY, HISTORIOGRAPHY, AND METHODOLOGY

In the following paper I would like to share some thoughts on issues of history and historiography arising from the recently completed Cuneiform in Canaan project, whose main findings appeared in the spring of 2006 in a book of the same name by this author arid Takayoshi Oshima now of The University of Bucharest, with editions of alphabetic cuneiform texts by Seth Sanders.2 1 will begin my discussion with a short introduction describing the project and its findings, and then move on to the main portion of the paper, namely a review of historical, historiographical, and methodological issues arising from the Cuneiform in Canaan project.     

JERUSALEM'S HINTERLAND IN THE EIGHTH–SEVENTH CENTURIES BCE: TOWNS,VILLAGES, FARMSTEADS,AND ROYAL ESTATES

Abstract

Although many excavations and extensive surveys were carried out in the vicinity of Jerusalem, very few systematic attempts were made to analyse the Iron Age city's hinterland in its entirety. The present article summarises some of the general results of a detailed study of the area around Jerusalem, identifies the territories of the city's ‘daughters’ (satellite towns), and then focuses on two such units, in which settlement distribution was markedly different from other units: Moza and Ramat Ra?el. The article concludes that most of the territory around Jerusalem belonged to organically developed towns, the territories of which were densely dotted with villages and (mainly) farmsteads. Moza and Ramat Ra?el, however, functioned in the late Iron Age II (7th century bce) as royal estates (perhaps even as a palatial estate in the latter case), responsible for both the production and storage of surplus.     

HASMONAEAN MODIʽIN AND BYZANTINE MODITHA: A TOPOGRAPHICAL–HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT

Abstract

The location of ancient Modi‘in, the hometown of the Hasmonaeans – as mentioned in 1 Maccabees and the writings of Josephus – has been in dispute ever since geographical–historical research on the site began. In this paper we explore the various possible locations for Modi‘in and propose a different geographical solution to the problem.