Until recently, historians tended to stress the perceived technological and ecological shortcomings of medieval agriculture. The ten essays assembled in this volume offer a contrary view. Based upon close documentary analysis of the demesne farms managed for and by lords, they show that, by 1300, in the most commercialized parts of England, production decisions were based upon relative factor costs and commodity prices. Moreover, when and where economic conditions were ripe and environmental and institutional circumstances favourable, medieval cultivators successfully secured high and ecologically sustainable levels of land productivity. They achieved this by integrating crop and livestock production into the sort of manure-intensive systems of mixed-husbandry which later underpinned the more celebrated output growth of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If medieval agriculture failed to fulfill the production potential provided by wider adoption of such systems, this is more appropriately explained by the want of the kind of market incentives that might have justified investment, innovation, and specialization on the scale that characterized the so-called 'agricultural revolution', than either the lack of appropriate agricultural technology or the innate 'backwardness' of medieval cultivators.

Lose yourself in the vast sewer networks that lie beneath the world's great cities - past and present. Let detailed archival plans, maps and photographs guide you through these subterranean labyrinths - previously accessible only to their builders, engineers and, perhaps, the odd rogue explorer. This execrable exploration traces the evolution of waste management from the ingenious infra-structures of the ancient world to the seeping cesspits and festering open sewers of the medieval period. It investigates and celebrates the work of the civil engineers whose pioneering integrated sewer systems brought to a close the devastating cholera epidemics of the mid-19th century and continue to serve a vastly increased population today. And let's not forget those giant fatbergs clogging our underground arteries, or the storm-surge super-structures of tomorrow.

Originally published in 2014, The Shaping of London chronologically examines the likely impact of wars, dynastic struggles, demographic change and economic growth on the physical fabric of London. The book traces the evolution of architectural style in London within the context of politics and economics, it looks at architecture over broad periods from Romanesque to Jacobean, and from Palladian to Victorian. Looking at the changes of London from 1066 to 1870, Balchin argues that London was created through a mixture of kings, merchants, governors and industrialists, which has lent itself to the creation of notable buildings, and public places in London and in turn their spatial dispersal has helped to determine the shape and areal extent of the metropolis.

This book investigates the causes and effects of modernisation in rural regions of Britain and Ireland, continental Europe, the Americas, and Australasia between 1780 and 1914. In this period, the transformation of the world economy associated with the Industrial Revolution fuelled dramatic changes in the international countryside, as landowning elites, agricultural workers, and states adapted to the consequences of globalisation in a variety of ways. The chapters in this volume illustrate similarities, differences, and connections between the resulting manifestations of agrarian reform and resistance that spread throughout the Euro-American world and beyond during the long nineteenth century.

First published in 1973. In this study of trade union political activity in the period since 1945, the author demolishes much of the original rhetoric and inherited wisdom to provide an alternative insight on the entire subject of unions in politics. For his study the author has chosen to examine, in detail, the political interests and activities of a representative group of British unions, while an extended chapter makes a comparative assessment of the American experience. This title will be of interest to scholars and students of history and politics.

First published in 1973. In this study, the author adopts a historical approach, tracing the evolution of socialist thinking during the past century and relating this to the growth of the union movement. The Taff Vale judgement, the Osborne judgement, the roles of the SDF, the Fabians, and the ILP - these episodes are re-examined from a novel perspective, and the historical material is frequently illuminated by the use of contemporary analogies. The second half of the book presents an analytical study of differing union political theories and attitudes against the modern industrial background. Here the Marxist case is studied in depth and contrasted with the views of the Social Democrats. The author then considers the ownership and control of the economy, industrial relations, prices and incomes and inflation, making it clear where he feels the movement should stand on the key political issues of today. Finally, the book suggests the way in which the Labour Party and the trade unions should organise for power in the country.

First published in 1938. This study of the labour crisis in the USA consists of interviews with leaders and members of labour unions, unorganised workers, businessmen, and those in positions of public responsibility. The author explores the foundations of the crisis, and examines the possible issues that he predicted the US labour force were going to encounter. This title will be of interest to scholars and students of political and labour history.

First published in 1924. This book provides a balanced picture of Trade Unionism as it was in the 1920s. The study opens with a brief outline of Trade Union history, before examining Trade Unions' structure, its place in government, and the internal issues that Trade Unions faced. Organised Labour will be of great interest to students and scholars of labour and political history.

This volume traces the attempts made after the Napoleonic Wars to link up all the numerous local and sectional Trade Societies into a single comprehensive 'General Trades Union' - attempts which culminated in the short-lived Grand National Consolidated Trades Union formed under Robert Owen's influence in 1833. Based on materials not previously used by historians, this book throws new light on the development of Trade Unionism, particularly in the North of England, during these critical years.

First published in 1974. This book examines the mechanism of the Labour Party, its conference, the National Executive, constituency parties, the workings of Transport House, the Parliamentary party and that highly charged aspect of left-wing affairs, party relations with the trade unions. There is a good deal of closely observed material on key events, such as the 1964-70 Labour Government as well as lively comment on rivalry on big issues. This title will be of interest to scholars and students of history and politics.

First published in 1987. This book considers the Trade Unions-Labour Party relationship. It traces developments over the 1970s and early 1980s, and analyses the debate between those who argue for the Unions to take a more prominent lead within the Party and those who are against this. This title will be of interest to scholars and students of politics and history.

First published in 1988. In a few short years during and just after the Great War, the Labour Party and the trade unions established themselves firmly at the centre of the British political and industrial scene. But at the same time, the politics and organisation of both Labour and unions were reshaped. This is a grass-roots study of a key period in the building of Labour's political and industrial base. It is a study of how unions and Labour were organised and motivated to seize their moments of destiny - and of how a new political industrial movement was limited by the common-sense of the age in which it was born. It is a study of shifting support for various Labour and Communist political and industrial strategies - of the pressures and struggles which reshaped the movement, stamping on it the character we know today. And it is a study of how labour - at work and in the community - responded to war, to prosperity, to depression.

First published in 1948, this book gives a full account of the development of the British Labour Party from its emergence as a national influence in the first world war to its return to power with an effective majority after the second world war. The study includes an epilogue which surveys the achievements of the party in the years after the 1945 election. This title will be of interest to scholars and students of history and politics.

First published in 1978. Britain's unions were blamed by many people for the country's post-war economic decline. Portrayed as greedy wreckers who wanted to run the country, they had become scapegoats for the state of the nation. This anatomy of Britain's diverse and complex trade union movement sets out to question that widespread opinion. The main argument advanced in the study is that unions in Britain were too weak, not too strong. From the 1940s until the 1970s, Robert Taylor believes, they had failed to achieve the constructive influence over British society that union movements elsewhere in western Europe had managed to gain. Considering the major and medium-sized unions separately, he examines the sudden and rapid growth of unionisation in Britain, the structure of the unions, their effectiveness, the influence they had, their international record, and the nature of trade union democracy.

First published in 1960. This title is a study of one of the most controversial alliances in British political history. The 'wage freeze', Bevanism, the block vote, nuclear disarmament: these are only a few of the points at which the unions' activities within the Labour Party had roused hot debate. Drawing extensively on previously unpublished material and on discussions with past members of the Labour Movement, the author creates a survey of what the partnership really amounted to.

This volume, first published in 1971, brings together eleven essays and articles on the history of the industrial revolution. Method is the central consideration, and the author discusses ways in which historians have analysed the industrial revolution, demonstrates inconsistency and bias in their interpretations, and suggests an appropriate framework of economic theory for future studies. This title will be of interest to students of history and economics.

This is the first book to describe the early English woollens' industry and its dominance of the trade in quality cloth across Europe by the mid-sixteenth century, as English trade was transformed from dependence on wool to value-added woollen cloth. It compares English and continental draperies, weighs the advantages of urban and rural production, and examines both quality and coarse cloths. Rural clothiers who made broadcloth to a consistent high quality at relatively low cost, Merchant Adventurers who enjoyed a trade monopoly with the Low Countries, and Antwerp's artisans who finished cloth to customers' needs all eventually combined to make English woollens unbeatable on the continent.

What do we mean when we say that cities have altered humanity's interaction with nature? The more people are living in cities, the more nature is said to be "urbanizing": turned into a resource, mobilized over long distances, controlled, transformed and then striking back with a vengeance as "natural disaster". Confronting insights derived from Environmental History, Science and Technology Studies or Political Ecology, Urbanizing Nature aims to counter teleological perspectives on the birth of modern "urban nature" as a uniform and linear process, showing how new technological schemes, new actors and new definitions of nature emerged in cities from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

Originally published in 1972, The University and British Industry examines the lively and controversial relationship between British industry and the university. The book looks at the impact of industry on the development of British universities from the 1850s to the 1970s, and with contribution from the universities to industry through scientific research and the supply of graduate skills. The book argues that the close involvement of the universities and industry has been one of the chief beneficial forces shaping the British universities movement in the last hundred years. It gives an account of the changes which took place within the universities to make them more suitable for industries purposes, describing for example the early rise of the English civic universities, strongly financed by, and closely supporting industry. The book also considers how, during the two world wars, industry became highly reliant on the universities for the war technology, and how, despite the depression between the wars, university research and graduate employment embraced the widening opportunities of the new industries. The book also discusses the expansion of the university in the sixties and points out that industrial motives have merged with those of social justice, posing dilemmas for present and future relations between universities and industry.

Cities are built over the remnants of their past buried beneath their present. We build on what has been built before, whether over foundations formalising previous permanency or over the temporal occupations of ground. But what happens when you shift a city - when you dislodge its occupation of ground towards a new ground, bury it and forget it? Focusing on Berlin's destruction during World War II and its reconstruction after the end of the war, this book offers a rethinking of how the practices of destruction and burial combine to reform the city through geography and how burying a city is intricately tied to forgetting destruction, ruination and trauma. Created from 25 million cubic meters of rubble produced during World War II, Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain) is the exemplar of the destroyed city. Its critical journey is chronicled in combination with Berlin's seven other rubble hills, and their connections to constructing forgetting through burial. Furthermore, the book investigates Berlin's sublime relation to Albert Speer's urban vision to rival the ancient cities of Rome and Athens through their now shared geographies of seven hills. Finally, there is a central focus on the role of the citizens who cleared Berlin's streets of rubble, and the subsequent human relationships between people and ruins. This book is valuable reading for those interested in Architectural Theory, Urban Geography, Modern History and Urban Design.

The 1898 suppression of white phosphorous in the French match industry was a victory of organized labour. At a time when most French workers did not have the power to effect changes in the health and safety conditions of their work, the match workers succeeded. At a time when most French women were not unionised and did not pursue effective action on occupational health problems, French women in the match industry succeeded. This book, first published in 1989, examines their actions and provides the definitive account of their success.

This book examines the creative exchanges between architects, artists and intellectuals, from the Early Renaissance to the beginning of the Enlightenment, in the forging of relationships between architecture and emerging concepts of language in early modern Italy. The study extends across the spectrum of linguistic disputes during this time - among members of the clergy, humanists, philosophers and polymaths - on issues of grammar, rhetoric, philology, etymology and epigraphy, and how these disputes paralleled and informed important developments in architectural thinking and practice. Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material, such as humanist tracts, philosophical works, architectural/antiquarian treatises, epigraphic/philological studies, religious sermons and grammaticae, the book traces key periods when the emerging field of linguistics in early modern Italy impacted on the theory, design and symbolism of buildings.

This volume offers an integrated set of local studies exploring the gendering of political activities across a variety of sites ranging from print culture, courts, government and philanthropic bodies and public spaces, outlining how a particular activity was constituted as political and exploring how this contributed to a gendered concept of citizenship. The comparative and transnational perspectives revealed through combining such work contributes to establishing new knowledge about the relationship between gender, citizenship and the development of the modern town in Northern Europe.

In the first book to chart late Imperial and Soviet health policy and its impact on the health of the collective in Russia's former capital and second "regime" city, Christopher Williams argues that in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg radical sections of the medical profession and the Bolsheviks highlighted the local and Tsarist government's failure to protect the health of poor peasants and the working class due to conflicts over the priority and direction of health policy, budget constraints and political division amongst doctors. They sought to forge alliances to change the law on social insurance and to prioritise the health of the collective. Situating pre- and post-revolutionary health policies in the context of revolutions, civil war, market transition and Stalin's rise to power, Williams shows how attempts were made to protect the Body Russian/Soviet and to create a healthier lifestyle and environment for key members of the new Soviet state. This failed due to shortages of money, ideology and Soviet medical and cultural norms. It resulted in ad hoc interventions into people's lives and the promotion of medical professionalization, and then the imposition of restrictions resulting from changes in the Party line. Williams shows that when the health of the collective was threatened and created medical disorder, it led to state coercion.

Based on innovative and unique primary sources (e.g. notarial deeds) Cotton Enterprises: Networks and Strategies looks to tell the story of the Lombardy cotton industry in the early 19th century, particularly the stories of entrepreneurs such as Francesco Turati who were able to 'corner' this otherwise atomistic industry. The book looks at both the financial and strategic elements of the businesses, as well as looking at enabling technology and even the emergence of factory organization in Italy and takes a business history analysis of pre-industrial business enterprises in a developing economy by taking into account all the crucial functions of enterprise. Cotton Enterprises: Networks and Strategies makes important contributions to the study and research of the financing of early cotton mills, technology transfer in these entrepreneurial ventures, the organization of production, including a detailed discussion of the available technology, networks and relationships within the district. By highlighting the shift from putting-out to factory system, the crucial change of actors (both entrepreneurs and workers) and the birth of a local industrial district, exerting a long-lasting influence on the history of the area the book outlines the building of entrepreneurial networks and social hierarchies in (at the time) a new urban context. Aimed at scholars, researchers and students in the fields of management history, development entrepreneurship and regional economics, Cotton Enterprises: Networks and Strategies answers previously non-addressable questions via innovative research methods and, as such, will be a key work in the field for years to come.