Urban History

Historians have assumed that early modern Europeans did not practice neo-naticide similar to the great Asian civilizations, but sex-ratio studies are only now entering the demographic literature. This article passes in review both published and unpublished research on sex ratios at baptism in Italy, France, England and colonial Acadia, together with juvenile sex ratios drawn from censuses in Germany, France and Italy. Both endemic and conjunctural imbalances appear everywhere, but they could target females or males depending upon the context. It is still considered newsworthy that in much of the world, parents select the sex of their children before bringing a pregnancy to term. In China, the sex ratio at birth is currently 116 males for every female, while in India, the rate is 111, significantly above the well-established biological norm of 105. 1 This sex preference creates well-publicized difficulties for young men seeking brides (The Economist, April 18 2015). Why kill females preferentially? The literature often lays the blame on misogynistic ideologies, suggesting that it would be sufficient to combat them with propaganda in order to eradicate the practice. There are several better reasons: first of all, in agricultural economies requiring strenuous ploughing with large animals and equally strenuous field and forest work far from home, males were better value. In patrilocal societies where husbands, or their families, received a sizeable dowry for the bride (which served as a security cushion for her and her children in the event of the premature death of either spouse), parents were unequal to the task of providing those for several daughters. Finally, if the aim is to keep the future population stable in order not to overstretch resources, then killing future child-bearers is simply more efficient than killing males and females indiscriminately. Today unwanted pregnancies are usually terminated by abortion, but in the past, the safer solution was to kill the newborn or expose it to the elements. Infanticide, like abortion, may be human universals, that is, part of the behavioural repertoire of every known society, although its frequency would vary according to local environmental conditions. 2 Humans are not alone in this behaviour: mothers in many species of mammals will sometimes cull their offspring at birth. In Darwinian language, infanticide, or abortion that has replaced it, are adaptive mechanisms involving some kind of rational decision-making on the part of the parent, which is usually the mother. 3 In most societies, newborns are not considered full-f ledged persons when leaving the womb. Rather, some sort of ceremony confers a name and social identity on them, sometimes providing an additional set of symbolic kin. Returning to the great Asian civilizations where sex-selective behaviour persists, parents enact strategies to better themselves and assess the likelihood of survival and future of the newborn infant. In traditional China and Japan, neonatal infanticide was a kind of post-natal abortion that allowed parents to choose the number, the spacing and the sex of their offspring, while coping better with short-term difficulties like famine. 4 In his compelling recent study on northeastern Japan, Fabian Drixler suggests that one-third of live births ended with infanticide during the 18th century, despite government disapproval of the practice. 5 Historians sometimes

Following a favourable reception on its original publication in 1996, The City Reader now appears in its second edition. In compiling the book, the editors have sought to bring together a collection ofessential readings and enduring writings'(p. xv). Whilst what is ...

As Enlightenment notions of predictability, progress and the sense that humans could control and shape their environments informed European thought, catastrophes shook many towns to the core, challenging the new world view with dramatic impact.This book concentrates on a period marked by passage from a society of scarcity to one of expenditure and accumulation, from ranks and orders to greater social mobility, from traditional village life to new bourgeois and even individualistic urbanism. The volume employs a broad definition of catastrophe, as it examines how urban communities conceived, adapted to, and were transformed by catastrophes, both natural and human-made. Competing views of gender figure in the telling and retelling of these analyses: women as scapegoats, as vulnerable, as victims, even as cannibals or conversely as defenders, organizers of assistance, inspirers of men; and men in varied guises as protectors, governors and police, heroes, leaders, negotiators and honorable men. Gender is also deployed linguistically to feminize activities or even countries. Inevitably, however, these tragedies are mediated by myth and memory. They are not neutral events whose retelling is a simple narrative. Through a varied array of urban catastrophes, this book is a nuanced account that physically and metaphorically maps men and women into the urban landscape and the worlds of catastrophe.

ABSTRACT:Obviously the city of Mexico is far away from Europe. Nevertheless, it was the perfect exemplar of city organized along imperial lines. As the capital of ‘New Spain’ and the headquarters of the viceroy and archbishop, it was the showcase of Spain in America. But suddenly and unexpectedly, the Spanish government's colonial policy had to be reconsidered on 8 June 1692 when the most important riot in the history of the city of Mexico broke out. A crowd of thousands of Indians gathered on the Plaza Mayor and kept shouting ‘long live the king, but kill the government’. They lynched the National Guards and burned every sign and symbol related to Spain. Far from being a mere food riot, it was a genuine political movement. The riot of 8 June 1692 was the result of ‘good government police’ that is to say ‘police’ understood in its original sense as good government of the city. This article examines the consequences of the revolt for the city's police and for the Spanish colo...

The creation of an intrusive neighborhood development plan by state officials is not surprising for a socialist society. In the case of Trnovo, the state's initial 1969 development plan met with tremendous opposition, but after some giveand-take among professionals over the next 10 years was implemented in slightly modified form. Official urban planners, professionally prominent individuals, and Trnovo locals each defined themselves–and their version of Trnovo–as modern, but in mutually incompatible ways. The urban landscape ...

examines the global entanglement of the Mexican labor movement during the Mexican Revolution. It describes how global influences made their entry into labor culture through the cinema, theater, and labor festivals as well as into the development of consumption patterns and advertisement. It further shows how the young labor movement constituted its discourse and invented its tradition at meetings and in the columns of newspapers. The local conditions constitute the framework for the examination of Mexican labor's perspectives on and engagement with contemporary events of global significance. Thereby, this book demonstrates how workers turned to the global context in search of guidance and role models, embracing global developments and narratives. It also reveals the differentiations from this context in order to create a unique local identity. This approach allows new perspectives on the role of a neglected revolutionary actor and on the influence of global developments in a revolution that has been predominantly interpreted from a national point of view. It shows the way global ideas were brought to life in the framework of revolutionary Mexico City-providing new insights into the grand-narratives of Globalization and Revolution.

Dengan Peraturan Daerah Kabupaten Purworejo Nomor 1 2019, Pemda Purworejo dalam bentuk DPRD dan bupati petahana Haji Agus Bastian MM, telah mengakui kenyataan asal-usul sang ibukota Bagelen dan jasa leluhur - artinya bahwa HUT kabupaten sekarang adalah 27 Februari 1831 (tanggal peresmian nama Purworejo sebagai nama dari pusat Keresidenan Bagelen baru dan bukan lagi 5 Oktober 901 tanggal dari  Prasasti Kayu Ara Hiwang (Mataram Pertama, Prasasti Sima) yang diakui selama 25 tahun (1994-2019) sebagai tanggal lahir Purworejo. PowerPoint 'Buku Kedung Kebo Cokronegoro I dan Masa Depan Purworejo' yang dipresentasikan secara virtual pada 24 Februari 2021 memberi tahu mengenai asal usul kabupaten, jasa dari trah bupati Cokronegaran dan proses sejarah yang membuat sebuah kota mungil (12.000 penduduk pada 1914) dan terperencil menjadi pusat pendidikan, dan gembong misionaris Kristen-Jawa dengan tokoh seperti Kiai Sadrach (Radin Abas, 1835-1924; bertugas di Purworejo, 1869-1924). Purworejo juga tempat tangsi militer infanteri yang besar pada era kolonial Hindia Belanda (1818-1942), yang menanam sebuah tradisi militer yang menghasilkan perwira sekaliber Oerip Soemohardjo (1893-1948) dan Jenderal Ahmad Yani (1922-1965). Pada akhirnya, hoofdplaats Bagelen itu  bisa sampai menyaingi kota besar seperti Yogyakarta dan Bandung [Revisi 27 Februari 2021].

The 1920s and 1930s were decades of intense religious polarization and violence in many parts of British India. These decades were also especially empowering ones for Hindu nationalist organizations in Delhi. So, it rankled Hindu leaders that Delhi’s built environment had a dearth of Hindu sacred structures to attest to their power, on account of the city’s past status as a Mughal capital. Instead, transitory spatial markers of local veneration made up its somewhat ephemeral Hindu sacred geography. The Shiv Mandir agitation of 1938 was a collective attempt by Hindu volunteers to forcibly occupy government land in a prominent arena of the city as a symbolic restitution of this historical inequality. The agitation itself had two parts—first, the occupation of a plot of land as a temple and, second, the aggregation of legal arguments supporting ownership of the plot for the Hindu public. By combining these two strategies, the Shiv Mandir agitation laid out the political and legal preconditions necessary for the production of a more conspicuous and enduring material landscape of organized Hindu religiosity in the city. Through this process, Hindu nationalist organizations consolidated themselves as the ultimate public custodians of temples and temple land. This was a powerful role that drew its prestige in good measure from control over prime urban property.