Residential segregation from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century: evidence from the Netherlands

A case study of three early modern Dutch cities (Alkmaar, Delft, and Amsterdam) using geographical information systems and confronting earlier historical, sociological, and geographical models finds clear patterns of segregation below the level of the city block, thus necessitating block-face mapping. The remarkable continuity in patterns of residential segregation is best explained by the workings of the real-estate market, allowing the well-to-do and middle classes to realize their preferences. In Amsterdam, the merchant elites were able to use their political dominance to plan a scenic and expansive residential environment free from noisy and odorous activities.     

Wilderness and health in the nineteenth century

During the latter part of the nineteenth century a form of medical treatment often called a “wilderness cure” enjoyed considerable popularity in the United States, especially in California. This procedure involved little more than an open-air sojourn in wild country, usually wooded uplands. It was based on the belief that wild, timbered uplands exerted curative influences on sick persons, especially consumptives. The cure's effectiveness was supposed to derive from influences of climate, vegetation, and style of living as well as spiritual influences related to aesthetics. Wilderness therapy fell into desuetude in the twentieth century as the realization spread that the wilderness environment was of little value in combating microbial and other agents of disease. In its heyday, however, the wilderness treatment attracted much support and was undertaken by a great many invalids. It seems highly likely that the perception of the wilderness as a source of health softened pre-existing negative attitudes to wild landscapes in America.     

Jane Jacobs: her life and work

In April 2006, Jane Jacobs—analyst of cities—died. As written in the Financial Times obituary of 27 April 2006 “She spent much of her career fighting for one deceptively simple principle: leave cities alone and let them develop by themselves”. In spring 2004 Gert-Jan Hospers visited Jane Jacobs in her Toronto home and conducted lengthy interviews with her about her beliefs, life and work. A future article based on this now invaluable material has been commissioned by European Planning Studies. However on the sad occasion of her death, and with the work of transcribing interview material underway, it seemed appropriate to create an account of key observations made by Jane Jacobs in that interview to explain her philosophy and practice more clearly than occurs in her always readable and influential books. As an early, maybe the first, evolutionary urban economist and modern inventor of the concept of “social capital”, it is especially appropriate to include this obituary in the journal, which has always been a welcoming host to literature composed from such perspectives.     

Brain physiology and the mind in the nineteenth century

This article explores the integration of research and theory in nineteenth-century neurophysiology. Four generalities combine to explain their integration. They are the core beliefs of the neurologists, the pervasive habit of perceiving mind when observing behavior, the criteria for the existence of mind, and mind as an efficient cause. These generalities help explain specific choices made by certain researchers to work within the traditional model of the nervous system, to reject materialism, and to find intelligence and voluntary behaviors in physiological systems.     

Coping with deviance: Swiss nationhood in the long nineteenth century

ABSTRACT. This article highlights two processes that shaped Swiss nationhood in the long nineteenth century. The first concerns the competition between different nation‐states and the nationalist visions these contests engendered. In a Europe dominated by the norm of the culturally and ethnically homogenous nation, the Swiss authorities, public intellectuals and various political representatives were desperate to display an image of national authenticity to the outside world. The result was a nationalism that combined voluntaristic and organic elements. In the second and main part of this article, the focus turns on citizenship; it is conceived not only as a social and legal institution, but also as a cognitive prism through which people defined their membership in the national community. Remarkably, the authority in granting national citizenship to foreign nationals remained firmly in the hands of the cantons and, above all, the Swiss municipalities. In practical terms, this meant that the Gemeinde provided the institutional and cognitive frame through which nationhood was primarily experienced, imagined and defined. While Switzerland represents a particularly strong case of a communalist polity, it should not be treated as unique. Instead, it should alert us to a potentially fertile yet little‐explored area of research: what might be called the communal embededdness of the national(ist) imagination.     

The context of migration: the example of Ireland in the nineteenth century

"A classic case where out-migration interacted with many other geographical phenomena is provided by rural Ireland in the nineteenth century. The apparent turning point was the Great Famine of the 1840s, but the areas with the greatest suffering from starvation did not necessarily show the greatest population decline, suggesting that other forces were active. Considerable economic and social changes were already taking place before the Famine: fertility was being reduced, later marriage was becoming established and considerable emigration was already taking place. Immediately after the Famine those areas which had been hardest hit often reverted to pre-Famine conditions and did not show strong population decline until the 1870s. The Famine was a most serious event, but the modernization of Irish rural life, which linked emigration with changes in family structure, agriculture and population numbers, was more important in bringing about geographical change."     

Albert Wilmarth's nineteenth century study of Down's syndrome in America: the work of a neuropathologist, asylum superintendent and eugenicist

Albert Wilmarth was an influential physician in nineteenth century America. His works in asylum management, eugenics and neuropathology were intimately interrelated, and his conception of people with Down's syndrome and how they should be treated were largely a product of these relationships. While many of his activities may be perceived in a negative way today, he should be credited with having discovered vasculitis in the brains of people with Down's syndrome during his pathological studies, a condition which is now perceived as autoimmune.     

Between cosmopolitanism and nationhood: Italian opera in the early nineteenth century

The revival of interest in music evident in recent historiography has led to an investigation of the specifically transnational nature of musical languages and practices. This article explores the possibility of re-reading in a transnational perspective the classical theme of the relationship between the Risorgimento and opera. It focuses on two different points of view: on the one hand, the construction of the librettos as a delicate balance between European romantic narratives and dramatic themes evoking nationalistic sentiments; on the other, the fact that ideas and practices of the theatre as a vehicle of political mobilisation developed in a broad international context where Mazzini and many other nationalists found inspiration in multinational political experiences and discourses. The article concludes by saying that the meanings of terms such as cosmopolitanism and nationalism need to be carefully weighed when we look at nineteenth-century opera production. Only in the closing decades of the century did genuine competition between national traditions arise, which led in Italy to a veritable ‘obsession’ with ‘Italianness’ in music.