This book offers the first survey of relations between town and country across Europe between the Black Death and the Enlightenment. Thirteen specially commissioned chapters give comprehensive coverage, from Spain to Sweden, and from the Polish Commonwealth to the Netherlands and Italy. Each chapter analyzes its country in the light of recent debates on state formation, urbanization, protoindustrialization, and the regional character of premodern economic growth. The Introduction discusses the historiographical and theoretical framework for systematic comparison, emphasizing how alternative political configurations could set countries on different paths to growth.

The threat of unstoppable plagues, such as AIDS and Ebola, is always with us. In Europe, the most devastating plagues were those from the Black Death pandemic in the 1300s to the Great Plague of London in 1665. For the past 100 years it has been accepted that Yersinia pestis, the infective agent of bubonic plague, was responsible for these epidemics. This book combines modern concepts of epidemiology and molecular biology with computer-modeling. Applying these concepts to the analysis of historical epidemics, the authors show that they were not, in fact, outbreaks of bubonic plague. Biology of Plagues offers a completely new interdisciplinary interpretation of the plagues of Europe, and establishes them within a geographical, historical, and demographic framework. This fascinating detective work will be of interest to readers in the social and biological sciences, and lessons learned will underline the implications of historical plagues for modern-day epidemiology.

The third volume in the Cambridge Urban History examines the process of urbanization and suburbanization in Britain from the early Victorian period to the twentieth century. Twenty-eight leading scholars provide a coherent, systematic, historical investigation of the rise of cities and towns in England, Scotland and Wales, examining their economic, demographic, social, political, cultural and physical development. The contributors discuss pollution and disease, social conflict, the relationships between towns and the surrounding countryside, leisure and consumption, local civic institutions and identities, and municipal and state responsibilities.

This volume examines the growth and development of English towns in the critical period between 1650 and 1850. Christopher Chalklin surveys market and county towns, port and manufacturing centers, new dockyard towns, spas and seaside resorts. He discusses house and public building, education, work and leisure activities, public duties and politics, and contrasts the emerging middle classes with the artisan and laboring masses. This concise study draws especially on recent publications incorporating new knowledge and interpretations. It will be a valuable resource for students of economic, social and urban history.

This volume examines the growth and development of English towns in the critical period between 1650 and 1850. Christopher Chalklin surveys market and county towns, port and manufacturing centers, new dockyard towns, spas and seaside resorts. He discusses house and public building, education, work and leisure activities, public duties and politics, and contrasts the emerging middle classes with the artisan and laboring masses. This concise study draws especially on recent publications incorporating new knowledge and interpretations. It will be a valuable resource for students of economic, social and urban history.

Bruce Campbell's book, first published in 2000, was the first single-authored treatment of medieval English agriculture at a national scale. It deals comprehensively with the cultivation carried out by or for lords on their demesne farms, for which the documentation is more detailed and abundant than for any other agricultural group either during the medieval period or later. A context is thereby assured for all future work on the medieval and early modern agrarian economies. The book also makes a substantive contribution to ongoing historical debates about the dimensions, chronology and causes of the medieval cycle of expansion, crisis and contraction. Topics dealt with include the scale and composition of seigniorial estates, the geography of land-use, pastoral husbandry, arable husbandry, land productivity, levels of commercialization and the size of the population in relation to the consumption of food at any given time.

Matthew Hannah's book focuses on late nineteenth-century America, the period of transformation which followed the Civil War and gave birth to the twentieth century. This was a time of industrialization and urbanization. Immigration was on the increase and traditional hierarchies were being challenged. Using a combination of empirical and theoretical material, Hannah explores the modernization of the American federal government during this period. Discussions of gender, race and colonial knowledge engage with Foucault's ideas on 'governmentality'. The empirical strands of the narrative surround the career and writing of Francis A. Walker. A hugely influential figure at that time, Walker was Director of the 1870 and 1880 US censuses, Commissioner of Indian affairs and a prominent political economist and educator. Through an analysis of his work, Hannah enriches previous interpretations of the period, demonstrating that the modernization of the American national state was a thoroughly spatial and explicitly geographical project.

Late nineteenth-century America was a time of industrialization and urbanization. Immigration was increasing and traditional hierarchies were being challenged. Combining empirical and theoretical material, Hannah explores the modernization of the American federal government during this period. Discussions of gender, race and colonial knowledge engage with Foucault's ideas on "governmentality." Through an analysis of the work of Francis A. Walker, a prominent political economist and educator of the time, the author demonstrates that the modernization of the American national state was a thoroughly spatial and explicitly geographical project.

David Meyer traces Hong Kong's vibrant history from the arrival of the foreign trading firms in the 1840s to its celebrated handover to China in 1997. Throughout this period, Hong Kong has been a pivotal meeting place of the Chinese and foreign social networks of capital. The author offers an optimistic view of Hong Kong in the twenty-first century, challenging those who predict its decline under Chinese rule. The story of Hong Kong's success will interest anyone concerned with its past, present and future.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Amur region had been a virtual terra incognita for the Russian public. However, the region's annexation succeeded in stirring the dreams of the country's most outstanding social and political visionaries, who declared it "civilization's most important step forward." A decade later, this enthrallment and optimism had evaporated. Mark Bassin examines Russia's perceptions of the new territories, placing the Amur enigma in the context of Russian Zeitgeist mid-century, and offers a new perspective on the relationship among Russian nationalism, geographical identity and imperial expansion.

Being insulated by two immense oceans makes it hard for Americans to appreciate the concerns of more exposed countries. American democracy's rapid rise also fools many into thinking the same liberal system can flourish anywhere, and having populated a vast continent with relative ease impedes Americans' understanding of conflicts between different peoples over other lands. Paul R. Pillar ties the American public's misconceptions about foreign threats and behaviors to the nation's history and geography, arguing that American success in international relations is achieved often in spite of, rather than because of, the public's worldview. Drawing a fascinating line from colonial events to America's handling of modern international terrorism, Pillar shows how presumption and misperception turned Finlandization into a dirty word in American policy circles, bolstered the "for us or against us" attitude that characterized the policies of the George W. Bush administration, and continue to obscure the reasons behind Iraq's close relationship with Iran. Fundamental misunderstandings have created a cycle in which threats are underestimated before an attack occurs and then are overestimated after they happen. By exposing this longstanding tradition of misperception, Pillar hopes the United States can develop policies that better address international realities rather than biased beliefs.

The individualism of the French peasantry during the nineteenth century has frequently been asserted as one of its most striking characteristics. In this 1999 book, Alan Baker challenges this orthodox view and demonstrates the extent to which peasants continued with traditional, and developed new, forms of collective action. He examines representations of the peasantry and discusses the discourse of fraternity in nineteenth-century France in general before considering specifically the historical development, geographical diffusion and changing functions of fraternal voluntary associations in Loir-et-Cher between 1815 and 1914. Alan Baker focuses principally upon associations aimed at reducing risk and uncertainty and upon associations intended to provide agricultural protection. A wide range of new voluntary associations were established in Loir-et-Cher - and indeed throughout rural France - during the nineteenth century. Their historical geography throws new light upon the sociability, upon the changing mentalites, of French peasants, and upon the role of fraternal associations in their struggle for survival.

Maps are inherently unnatural. Projecting three-dimensional realities onto two-dimensional surfaces, they are abstractions that capture someone's idea of what matters within a particular place; they require selections and omissions. These very characteristics, however, give maps their importance for understanding how humans have interacted with the natural world, and give historical maps, especially, the power to provide rich insights into the relationship between humans and nature over time. That is just what is achieved in Mapping Nature across the Americas. Illustrated throughout, the essays in this book argue for greater analysis of historical maps in the field of environmental history, and for greater attention within the field of the history of cartography to the cultural constructions of nature contained within maps. This volume thus provides the first in-depth and interdisciplinary investigation of the relationship between maps and environmental knowledge in the Americas-including, for example, stories of indigenous cartography in Mexico, the allegorical presence of palm trees in maps of Argentina, the systemic mapping of US forests, and the scientific platting of Canada's remote lands.

The Shackleton of his day, Leopold McClintock (1819-1907) from County Louth was the leading Arctic explorer of the Victorian era. He undertook four major voyages, epic sledge journeys, and was the first to bring definite information on the lost Franklin party. He then rose to admiral and advised Robert Falcon Scott before the Discovery expedition in 1901. After his death a memorial plaque was unveiled at Westminister Abbey, portraits were hung in the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the McClintock Channel in the Arctic was named after him.

This revealing 1997 book in the Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography series presents some of the first researches into a trove of hitherto inaccessible primary source material. A controversial component of Lloyd George's People's Budget of 1909-10 was the 'New Domesday' of landownership and land values. This rich documentation, for long locked away in the Inland Revenue's offices, became available to the public in the late 1970s. For the growing number of scholars of early twentieth century urban and rural Britain, Dr Short offers both a coherent overview and a standard source of reference to this valuable archive. Part I is concerned with the processes of assembling the material and its style of representation; Part II with suggested themes and locality studies. A final chapter places this new material in the context of discourses of state intervention in landed society prior to the Great War.

The story of the 1882 Palmer Sinai Expedition, a spying and terrorist mission that ended in the murder of its participants and was one of the great cause celebre of the nineteenth century. Just before sunset on August 8th 1882 HMS Cockatrice, a small paddle wheel gunboat, appeared off the Egyptian shore. A rowing boat was lowered down its side and slowly moved towards the beach. On its arrival, six men and a teenage boy alighted. Three of the group were British, all dressed as Arabs, two were Bedouin tribesmen, one a Jew and one a Syrian. The following morning, this mismatched party set off for the desert, taking with them two boxes of dynamite and GBP3,000 in gold coin. Five of them were never seen again. An historical 'who-done-it', an adventure story, a history of the Anglo-Egyptian War and a biography of those involved in the controversy, /These Chivalrous Brothers/ explores the gulf between the Imperial ideal and reality and provides an insight into the character of the men who built the Empire. Through the biographies, it also throws light on such disparate topics as the early history of spying, spiritualism, female hysteria, biblical archaeology, various African uprisings, the Boer War and the hunt for 'Jack the Ripper'.

Discover the 12 crucial moments in Britain's past that will answer the greatest questions for our future in this richly insightful and fascinating history 'A richly entertaining canter through the country's past. Engrossing' INDEPENDENT ___________ In 878 the borders of Alfred the Great's Wessex were confined to a small patch of marshland in Somerset. This was Britain. Four centuries later, and the country straddled the English Channel, embracing much of what we now know as France. Six hundred years later, its boundaries were to be found in the Caribbean, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Sunda Strait. These, too, were Britain. Yet when - and where - did Britain begin? Is the shape of Britain led by the British - or are foreign powers more responsible for our borders than we realise? Is Britain justified in its island mentality? Will Britain ever be at ease with its own borders? And is the shape of Britain soon to change all over again? . . . This comprehensive, entertaining and concise new history uses twelve maps to explain Britain's most characteristic trait - our need to be both part of the wider world, yet separate from it. **Please note a printing error in map 10 is now being fixed**

The French historian Marc Bloch has often been praised for his interdisciplinary approach. This book demonstrates the importance of both Vidalian geography and Durkheimian sociology for Bloch and the significant, but often overlooked, differences between his approach and theirs. In contrast to much other work on Bloch, Professor Friedman highlights the intellectual and institutional contexts of Bloch's works, arguing that only by a careful examination of the debates in which he was involved can one begin to come to terms with the nature of his contribution.

In his now classic work of historical geography, published in 1976, Lewis traces the rise and expansion of New Orleans through four major historic periods. This revised and greatly expanded second edition brings that story up-to-date, illustrating how the city continues to overcome its site on the Mississippi Delta - ""a fearsome place, difficult enough for building houses, lunacy for wharves and skyscrapers.

The tithe surveys of mid-nineteenth-century England and Wales marked a new departure in government-sponsored, cadastral surveying of the nation's land. The 11,800 large-scale, detailed maps which they comprise are recognised as one of the most important sets of manuscript historical sources used by historical geographers and economic, social and local historians as well as lawyers representing clients in property and rights of way disputes and county and local planning offices. Despite this much acknowledged value, historians are not well served with indexes, descriptive catalogues or indications of tithe map coverage. A first object of this book is to provide a standard work of reference which will be an essential research tool for users of tithe maps. The database has also been analysed to reveal the general cartographic characteristics of this internationally important government survey.

Both fire and climatic variability have monumental impacts on the dynamics of temperate ecosystems. These impacts can sometimes be extreme or devastating as seen in recent El Nino/La Nina cycles and in uncontrolled fire occurrences. This volume brings together research conducted in western North and South America, areas of a great deal of collaborative work on the influence of people and climate change on fire regimes. In order to give perspective to patterns of change over time, it emphasizes the integration of paleoecological studies with studies of modern ecosystems. Data from a range of spatial scales, from individual plants to communities and ecosystems to landscape and regional levels, are included. Contributions come from fire ecology, paleoecology, biogeography, paleoclimatology, landscape and ecosystem ecology, ecological modeling, forest management, plant community ecology and plant morphology. The book gives a synthetic overview of methods, data and simulation models for evaluating fire regime processes in forests, shrublands and woodlands and assembles case studies of fire, climate and land use histories. The unique approach of this book gives researchers the benefits of a north-south comparison as well as the integration of paleoecological histories, current ecosystem dynamics and modeling of future changes.

This folded map (890mm x 1000mm when unfolded) is an ideal souvenir for tourists to Gloucestershire and also a valuable reference resource for local and family history research. It includes 4 Historic maps of Gloucestershire, John Speed's County Map of Gloucestershire 1611, Johan Blaeu's County Map of Gloucestershire 1648,Thomas Moule's County Map of Gloucestershire 1836 and The City of Gloucester 1805 by Cole and Roper. All the maps have been meticulously re-produced from antique originals and printed on 90 gsm "Progeo" paper which was specially developed as a map paper. It has high opacity to help reduce show through and a cross grain giving it greater durability to as the map is being folded.

How do peasants, producing mainly for themselves, become capitalist farmers, producing largely for sale? What happens to farm sizes, farming practices, and the relationships between cultivators and others in the process of this transition? How far does it vary from region to region? Is it inherent in the peasantry, or must it be instigated by landlord, townsfolk or the state? These are some of the questions addressed by Goeran Hoppe and John Langton in this 1995 study of rural change in Sweden. Eschewing both traditional narrow empiricism, and the recent trend to over-employ modern social theory, the authors have carefully combined theories about the transition from peasantry to capitalism with meticulous analysis of the abundant Swedish records. In doing so, they reveal the wide geographical variety and rich socioeconomic complexity of the changes which occurred in the process of modernization in the nineteenth century.

This 1994 study uses the experience of Cracow to illuminate general patterns of trade and urban growth in central and eastern Europe over several centuries. Dr Carter emphasizes the spatial aspects of commodity analysis during the later medieval and early modern periods, and traces the impact of political circumstance on commercial progress and mercantile evolution. He describes the regions and places of especial significance for Cracow's trade development, and examines the principal trading flows and commodity movements within the overall context of European economic and social change. Based upon an intensive analysis of primary sources, Trade and Urban Development in Poland breaks new ground in its examination of the impact of commerce on urban growth over the longue duree, and will make a major contribution to our understanding of the historical geography of Europe.

The advent of photography opened up new worlds to 19th century viewers, who were able to visualize themselves and the world beyond in unprecedented detail. But the emphasis on the photography's objectivity masked the subjectivity inherent in deciding what to record, from what angle and when. This text examines this inherent subjectivity. Drawing on photographs that come from personal albums, corporate archives, commercial photographers, government reports and which were produced as art, as record, as data, the work shows how the photography shaped and was shaped by geographical concerns.