The Riksdag,the state bureaucracy and the administration of hospitals in eighteenth‐century Sweden

Traditionally, the Norwegian modernization process has been presented as a success story that focuses on how social movements and democratized political institutions in the 19th and 20th centuries laid the foundations for a society and culture with an emphasis on social equality. The paper offers an alternative analysis of this process, based not on the issue of material equality and inequality, but on the concepts of normality and deviance. A comparison of the development of the Norwegian national education policy since the middle of the 19th century with the Danish and Swedish experiences involves the exclusion of the dissimilar as a distinct feature of the Norwegian policy. ‘Disability’ was constructed as a category of deviance by public policies and administrative and professional practice. The professions – particularly teachers and doctors – were important actors who offered alternative conceptions of normality and disability. However, the constructions that they selected were those that were in closest dialogue with the particular challenges confronted by the Norwegian modernisation process: first the liberal, then the social democratic construction. Because the national conditions confronting the Scandinavian modernization processes differed from each other, so did the related constructions of disability.     

Freedom to divorce or protection of marriage? The divorce laws in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the early twentieth century

In the period 1909-1927, new laws concerning divorce and marriage were enacted by the Scandinavian countries. Both at the time and more recently, these laws were considered as "liberal" as they promoted greater freedom to divorce based on individuality and gender equality. In this article, the authors first analyze the changes in these Family laws in the early twentieth century. Then, the authors study the effect of these laws on divorce and marriage patterns. As these laws did not modify the trend in divorce rates, the authors ask why this was the case. The authors' conclusions are that the laws were more concerned with preserving the sanctity of marriage and maintaining social order than with promoting individual freedom and gender equality.     

Seventeenth‐ and eighteenth‐century commentators on the chemical composition of the brain

Abstract

The period between 1600 and 1800 was one of great change in the history of science, generally, and in the history of chemistry, specifically. It opened with Francis Bacon's visionary recognition of the benefits to mankind that would accrue from the expansion of scientia and closed with the overthrow of the phlogiston hypothesis. New chemical knowledge resulted from the efforts of the alchemists, especially the Paracelsians, and of the phlogistic philosophers, some of it recorded by writers of magic books (Thorndike, 1958; Camporesi, 1989). The authors of these works reflected ‘the general mentality… imbued with magic, occult beliefs, unreal suggestions, ‘voices’, and ‘rumours’, … ‘errors’ and ‘prejudices’.‘ In respect to brain chemistry there appeared, beside the fantastic, elements of fact that characterise this period as embracing the ‘pre‐history’ of neurochemistry.     

Seutter,Probst and lotten an eighteenth‐century map publishing house in Germany

Decorative printed maps of the 15Th to 18Th centuries. A revised edition of Old decorative maps and charts by A. L. Humphreys. By R. A. Skelton. London‐New York. 1952. 80 p. 84 plates, of which 12 in colours.

“The World Encompassed”—Catalogue Of An exhibition of the history of maps, held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, October‐November, 1952. Published by the Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, 1952. 60 plates.

Union Géographique Internationale. Rapport de la Commission pour la Bibliographie des cartes Anciennes. Fasc. I. Rapport au XVIIe Congrès International, Washington 1952 par R. Almagià. Contributions pour un Catalogue des Cartes Manuscrites 1200–1500 éditées par M. Destombes. 1952. 63 p. Fasc. II. Catalogue des cartes Gravées au XVe siècle par Marcel Destombes. Mesnil. 1952. 95 p.

The John Carter Brown Library. Providence, Rhode Island. Report to the Corporation of Brown University, July 1, 1951. Providence. 1951. 74 p.

Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1600–1850. An Essay on the cultural, artistic and scientific influence exercised by the Hollanders in Japan from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries by C. R. Boxer. The Hague. 2nd edit. 1950. 198 p., 17 pl.

The Vienna‐Klosterneuburg Map Corpus of the Fifteenth Century. A Study of the transition from medieval to modern science. By Dana Bennet Durand. Leiden 1952. XVI ‐ 510 p. 5 figs. 23 plates.

R. Almagià, Monumenta cartographica Vaticana. Vol. III. Le pitture murali della Galleria delle carte geografiche. Città del Vaticano. Biblioteca Apos‐tolica Vaticana. 1952. In folio. VIII ‐ 90 pp. LIV plates.

Il Padre Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718) nel Terzo Centenario della Nascita (= Father Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718) in the Third Centenary of his Birth). Roma. 1951–1952. 525 pp., 40 plates.

Bo Bramsen. Gamle Danmarks Kort. An historical review with bibliographic comments for the epoch 1570–1770. Copenhagen. 1952. 159 p. Ills.

Etude historique sur les ingénieurs hydrographes et le service hydrographique de la marine (1814‐1914) par M. Maurice Rollet de L'Isle. Annales hydrographiques. 1950. 4e ser. T.I. (bis). Paris. 1951. 378 p. XXII Pls.

A List of Japanese Maps of the Tokugawa Era. By George H. Beans. Tall Tree Library Publication no. 23; Jenkiniown, Pa., 1951.     

Social change and sexual mores: a comparison between pre‐20th‐century Norway and 20th‐century Botswana

This article compares pre‐20th‐century Norway and 20th‐century Botswana—two settings separated by time and space but sharing a sharp rise in non‐nuptial births. The comparison seeks to create a synergetic analytical effect by combining firsthand, experience‐near field data from Botswana with solid historical analyses of bastardy in Europe. This radical comparison provides a perspective that highlights the importance of treating “culture” not as a residual category, but as an integral part of everything social. This implies that there is a need not only for a proper sociocultural contextualization of localities, but also for an analysis of extra‐local power structures as fundamentally cultural, reflecting not only bureaucratic and political concerns but also values and existential perspectives.