Studies dealing with the demographic events of any given period from the early historical up to World War I.
Comprehensive surveys, notes of sources, and items on the state of research. Particularly concerned with the period before modern vital registration was introduced and censuses were taken. Historical items that primarily pertain to one specific demographic variable are classified first under the specific heading and then cross-referenced to this heading.
64:20549 Gorskaya, N. A. The
historical demography of Russia in the era of feudalism.
[Istoricheskaya demografiya Rossii epokhi feodalizma.] ISBN
5-02-009750-0. LC 96-180903. 1994. 212 pp. Nauka: Moscow, Russia. In
Rus.
The author first describes the development of the study of
historical demography in the Soviet Union, which began in the 1950s.
She then presents a summary of the demographic history of the Russian
population in three chapters, which cover the period from the ninth to
the fifteenth century, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the
eighteenth century.
Correspondence: Nauka, Profsoyuznaya
ul. 90, 117864 GSP-7, Moscow B-485, Russia. Location: U.S.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
64:20550 Guinnane, Timothy W. The
vanishing Irish: households, migration, and the rural economy of
Ireland, 1850-1914. Princeton Economic History of the Western
World, ISBN 0-691-04307-8. LC 97-5383. 1997. xvii, 335 pp. Princeton
University Press: Princeton, New Jersey. In Eng.
The population
decline that occurred in Ireland over the six decades following the
Great Famine in the middle of the nineteenth century is analyzed in
this study. "First, the focus throughout is on rural Ireland. The
rural focus reflects the fact that Ireland was a very rural country
even as late as 1914, and that depopulation was a primarily rural
phenomenon.... Second, the focus is on the period between the Great
Famine and the First World War, roughly 1850-1914.... Third, this study
aims at once to describe and explain Ireland's population history and
to use that history to illuminate more general population-related
phenomena both in European history and in today's world." Topics
covered include marriage and nonmarriage, migration and emigration,
household structure and economic objectives, and the aged and relations
between generations. Data are from a variety of sources, including the
manuscript censuses of 1901 and 1911.
Correspondence:
Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NJ
08540. Location: Princeton University Library (FST).
64:20551 Levine, David. Sampling
history: the English population. Journal of Interdisciplinary
History, Vol. 28, No. 4, Spring 1998. 605-32 pp. Cambridge,
Massachusetts. In Eng.
This is a critique of the book "English
Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580-1837", by E. A.
Wrigley, R. S. Davies, J. E. Oeppen, and R. S. Schofield. The reviewer
criticizes the purely demographic approach taken by its authors.
"The present work is subject to five main criticisms: First, it
abstracts demographic experience from its social and historical
context; second, the social context itself--and, in particular, the
nature of early industrialization--is misconceived; third, their new
demographic measurements do not dramatically advance our understanding
of the subject the broad outlines of which have been known for twenty
years; fourth, their discussion of fertility strategies is not
convincing; and, fifth, their fastidious concern for accuracy has meant
that the potential analytical benefits of family reconstitution have
not been realized--indeed, they have not even been
attempted."
Correspondence: D. Levine, University of
Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 100 St. George
Street, Toronto, Ontario M52 1A1, Canada. Location: Princeton
University Library (SH).
64:20552 Macfarlane, Alan. The
savage wars of peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian trap. ISBN
0-631-18117-2. LC 96-28823. 1997. xvii, 427 pp. Blackwell: Cambridge,
Massachusetts/Oxford, England. In Eng.
This study attempts to
answer one of the basic questions of historical demography: How were
some nations able to break out of the Malthusian trap of war, famine,
and disease? In particular, the author examines how the two island
nations of England and Japan were able to achieve this feat. The
factors affecting mortality are first discussed, with the emphasis on
disease. Three major branches of infectious disease are described, and
the environmental and cultural changes associated with lowering
mortality in the two countries are analyzed. The author then turns to
the factors that kept fertility under control and prevented a too-rapid
rate of population growth. These include patterns of marriage and
sexual relations, factors affecting conception, including
contraception, and the handling of unwanted conceptions through
abortion or infanticide.
Correspondence: Blackwell
Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, England. Location:
Princeton University Library (SPR).
64:20553 Richter, Jeffrey S.
Infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in Imperial
Germany. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 28, No. 4,
Spring 1998. 511-51 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Eng.
"This article notes strong regional variation in
reproductive-crime convictions [in Germany from 1882 to 1914], and
weighs the importance of illegitimacy and other factors in this
regional variation.... Imperial Germany's regions with particularly
high rates of illegitimacy did not overlap well with the regions that
showed high rates of reproductive crime. Statistical analysis
demonstrates that the regional variation of reproductive crime had no
significant correlation with the regional variation of
illegitimacy--even in the case of infanticide, which was defined to
apply only to illegitimate births." The author concludes that
various cultural, social, and economic factors influenced the rates of
these crimes.
Correspondence: J. S. Richter, Harvard
University, Department of History, Cambridge, MA 02138. Location:
Princeton University Library (SH).
64:20554 Sonnino, Eugenio.
Italian historical demography, 1940-1980, with 1981-1993 included:
a bibliographic essay. [La demografia storica italiana 1940-1980
con integrazione 1981-1993: saggio bibliografico.] Bollettino di
Demografia Storica, No. 26-27, 1997. xxv, 317 pp. Società
Italiana di Demografia Storica [SIDES]: Bologna, Italy. In Ita.
This bibliography of studies on the demographic history of Italy
has been updated to include studies published between 1981 and 1993, as
well as those published from 1940 to 1980. There are no abstracts, but
keywords are given to describe the content of the studies cited.
Indexes are provided of authors, time periods and subjects, years of
publication, and regions.
Correspondence: Società
Italiana di Demografia Storica, Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche,
Via Belle Arti 41, 40126 Bologna, Italy. Location: Princeton
University Library (SPR).
Applications of demographic methodology to the records of the past. Relevant items are coded here and, if of more general interest than to historical demography alone, are cross-referenced to N. Methods of Research and Analysis Including Models.
64:20555 Banens, Maks.
Demographic reconstitution of the French departments for the
nineteenth century. [Reconstituer la démographie
départementale française du XIXe siècle.]
Population, Vol. 52, No. 6, Nov-Dec 1997. 1,329-59 pp. Paris, France.
In Fre. with sum. in Eng; Spa.
"This paper describes the
methods used in the reconstitution of past populations for French
départements during the nineteenth century, developed mainly by
Etienne van de Walle and Noël Bonneuil. It begins by outlining two
different approaches on which reconstitution methods are based and
suggests some methodological hypotheses. It continues with an
explanation of how these methods were applied to a selected
département, Hérault.... In the second part of this
article a reconstitution method which takes account of criticisms is
presented."
Correspondence: M. Banens,
Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Campus-Rue Solomon Mahlangu,
80025 Amiens Cedex, France. E-mail: banens@danaid.univ-montp3.fr.
Location: Princeton University Library (SPR).
64:20556 Denevan, William M. Carl
Sauer and Native American population size. Geographical Review,
Vol. 86, No. 3, Jul 1996. 385-97 pp. New York, New York. In Eng.
"Geographers have played an important role in the great debate
over the size of Indian populations in the Americas at the time of
European arrival. Carl Sauer was a major influence on his graduate
students, on historical demographers at the University of California,
Berkeley, and on a younger generation of historical geographers. Even
in the face of more conservative estimates by other scholars, Sauer and
his students and other associates have consistently argued for large
numbers of Indians.... Here I will examine Sauer's research on Indian
demography and his influence on other scholars working on the question
of Indian numbers."
Correspondence: W. M. Denevan,
University of Wisconsin, Department of Geography, Madison, WI
53706-1491. Location: Princeton University Library (PR).
64:20557 Lynch, Katherine A.; Greenhouse, Joel
B.; Brändström, Anders. Biometric modeling in
the study of infant mortality: evidence from nineteenth-century
Sweden. Historical Methods, Vol. 31, No. 2, Spring 1998. 53-64 pp.
Washington, D.C. In Eng.
"In this study, we investigate a
well-known biometric model of infant mortality that has been used both
to distinguish major causes of mortality before 1 year of age and to
examine historical data to identify possible underregistration of
infant mortality, particularly that which occurred shortly after birth.
We show that arguments for the under-registration of infant deaths
based solely on the biometric model cannot be supported empirically and
are likely due to mis-specifications of the model as well as
inappropriate methods for estimating the parameters of interest."
The study uses data for 21 parishes in nineteenth-century
Sweden.
Correspondence: K. A. Lynch, Carnegie Mellon
University, Department of History, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Location:
Princeton University Library (SPR).
64:20558 Paine, Richard R.; Harpending, Henry
C. Effect of sample bias on paleodemographic fertility
estimates. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 105,
No. 2, Feb 1998. 231-40 pp. New York, New York. In Eng.
"This
paper will examine how two specific forms of bias, infant
underenumeration caused by differential preservation or incomplete
archaeological recovery and misidentification of individuals over age
45 related to methodological bias, can affect paleodemographic
reconstructions. Specifically, we will describe how the two forms of
bias may affect estimates made using the model life table fitting
procedure developed by the authors...." The geographical focus is
on the United States. It is found that "overestimation of
fertility and birth rates increases both absolutely and as a percentage
of the true rate as population growth increases. This bias is very
consistent."
Correspondence: R. R. Paine, University
of Utah, Department of Anthropology, 102 Stewart Building, Salt Lake
City, UT 84113. E-mail: paine@anthro.utah.edu. Location:
Princeton University Library (PR).
