The minor rural aristocracy and great lords in thirteenth-century Tuscany: three cases from the entourage of the Guidi counts

This article examines relations in thirteenth-century Tuscany between the minor rural aristocracy and great rural lords, that is, those based outside cities. The subject is approached through a study based on three families, with special emphasis on the way they were bound to the extended family of the Guidi counts, who were prominent at the highest level in the thirteenth-century kingdom of Italy. In the thirteenth century, attendance on the counts was not attractive to families of the minor aristocracy: it was universally acknowledged that the great rural lords of Tuscany had little to offer their adherents in terms of wealth, power and prestige, incentives which could be obtained from the cities of the region. Minor aristocrats who chose to live as professional soldiers were particularly attracted to the cities, which were always in need of soldiers for their armies.     

The weight of nineteenth century Mexicans in the Western United States

When traditional methods for measuring economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, heights and BMIs are now well-accepted measurements that represent biological conditions during economic development. Weight, after controlling for height, is an additional measure for current net nutrition. Little is known about how weights varied among Mexicans living in the nineteenth century American West. Between 1870 and 1920, average Mexican weight was low and remained constant. Mexican farmers had the heaviest weights, and unskilled worker weights were low. Weight of Mexican-born individuals were higher than Mexicans born in the United States at low weights but lower at high weights. For combined characteristics, weight varied the most with age, an uncontrollable characteristic, indicating that nineteenth century Mexican current net nutrition varied the most with factors over which they had no control.     

Valentin Magnan and Sergey Korsakov: French and Russian pioneers in the study of alcohol abuse

This study focuses on two outstanding psychiatrists: the Frenchman Valentin Magnan (1835–1916) and the Russian Sergey Korsakov (1854–1900). Their international renown is primarily associated with their investigations into health consequences of alcohol consumption; they were pioneers in this field, and happened to know each other well. The similarities and differences are shown in social and scientific approaches adopted by these two scientists. In his work, Magnan focused mainly on absinthe and epilepsy; he considered alcoholism to be a hereditary mental disorder. Korsakov, after a period of work in Paris under Magnan’s guidance, represented a more modern generation and was advancing fundamental ideas on the nature of psychoses and merging clinical features, somatic, psychological, and social factors. Although Magnan has practically disappeared from the current literature on alcoholism, Korsakov is still clearly present today.     

The wealthier inhabitants of Croydon in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries

This article examines the wealthier inhabitants of Croydon in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, focusing on differences in wealth, ownership of property and social relationships. Using wills and subsidy lists, four broad categories of people were identified: gentlemen, yeomen, tradesmen and craftsmen and widows. There was no simple gradation of wealth between these groups; although gentlemen were generally among the richest subsidy payers, yeomen and tradesmen could also figure. In terms of social relationships and the ownership of property, there were differences. Gentlemen tended to marry within their own social group, appoint other gentlemen as overseers in their wills and were more likely to own land outside Croydon. The social relationships of yeomen and tradesmen/craftsmen were more focused on the town itself, as were their land purchases. Two groups of individuals can therefore be seen, not one homogenous entity as some scholars have argued.     

Seductive Alienation: The American Way of Life Rearticulated in Occupied Japan

This article explores how the notion of American domesticity promoted by US occupation forces in postwar Japan was decoded and rearticulated by non-elite Japanese women, a social group that has been largely overlooked in studies of the global promotion of the American way of life during the early Cold War years. Specifically examined here is the case of Takehisa Chieko, an actress and the wife of an American officer, who enjoyed high visibility in popular women’s magazines as the embodiment of the idealised postwar American lifestyle. A reading of Takehisa’s magazine writings, interviews, and photographs suggests, however, that she was far from a passive recipient and transmitter of this cultural message. As such, a close unpacking of her rearticulation of the idea of American domesticity toward the particular socio-cultural fabric of postwar Japan reveals the particular nature of this supposedly universal American model. In demonstrating the various dilemmas that stemmed from confronting both the seductive and alienating features of the American way as promoted in occupied Japan, this study illuminates a point of rupture in the larger US global promotion of American domesticity as a means toward cultural hegemony and political containment in the early Cold War period.     

A New View of the ‘Edesö Wreck’: identifying the Swedish naval vessel Bodekull,built 1659–1661 and sunk 1678 from written sources

This article complements the archaeological account of the so‐called ‘Edesö Wreck’ with archival research that has led to its identification. In 1659 the Swedish King Karl X Gustav ordered a number of vessels for transport of horses and soldiers while at war with Denmark. The king died just a few months later, the war with Denmark was aborted, and the unfinished vessels were rebuilt to serve other purposes. One of these was Bodekull, built under English master shipwright Thomas Day between 1659 and 1661. In October 1678 Bodekull sank in the Stockholm archipelago. Alterations made during construction mentioned in written sources have been noted on the wreck and strengthen the argument for the identification.     

Assessment and Significance of a World War II battle site: recording the USS Emmons using a High‐Resolution DEM combining Multibeam Bathymetry and SfM Photogrammetry

The USS Emmons, a 106m US Navy Gleaves‐class destroyer minesweeper that sank in 40m of water off Okinawa Island, Japan after kamikaze attack in 1945, is used as a case study for examining the history, multivocal significance, and heritage management of a World War II naval battle site. A baseline record of the site was made using an innovative method incorporating precise control points obtained from high‐resolution multibeam echosounding bathymetry to generate 3D models using structure‐from‐motion photogrammetry. The 3D models produced can be used for sharing information about this underwater cultural heritage and for future in situ monitoring of the archaeological remains.     

Police–public relations in transition in Antwerp, 1840s–1914

This article examines how police–public relations have evolved during the nineteenth-century expansion of formal policing. Following recent critiques of the ‘state monopolization thesis’, it dismisses the idea of a ‘policeman-state’ progressively assuming dominion over the governance of crime, generating vicious antagonism between police and public, and effectively coercing the latter into obedience. In order to chart changes in police–public relations across the ‘long’ nineteenth century, the analysis draws on Antwerp police statistics from 1842 until 1913. It assumes that movements in different types of offences reflect the initiative of different actors and also constitute a valuable index of conflicts between police and public. The article argues that although police activity in Antwerp did significantly increase towards the end of the nineteenth century, priorities in crime control were not merely dictated from ‘above’ (the police and authorities) but also delivered from ‘below’ (the people). It shows how police interventions were shaped by shifting policy concerns, by the interests of different urban interest groups, and by the practical constraints of police work. Finally, it counters the idea of a repressive police disciplining a hostile public with evidence of growing public use of the police and of complex popular attitudes towards the ‘blue locusts’.     

The $15 Wage Movement Moves South: Politics of Region in Labor Union Campaigns

The North American labor movement continues to wrestle with the challenges of organizing workers in the US South. This article explores the contradictory position of the South in the contemporary labor movement, using the circulation of the $15 minimum wage to ground the analysis. By problematizing the place of the South in US labor, this article contributes to efforts to complicate the geographic imaginaries of the South and to our understanding of the contemporary labor movement's expansionary projects. Drawing on qualitative interviews and participant observation in Greensboro and Durham, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia, I trace the abstract circulation of organizational resources, strategies, and tactics of the $15 wage movement into, throughout, and back out of the South.