Taking Britain and Italy as comparative cases, the author explores the extent to which dominant notions of family life differed in postwar Britain and Italy and the implications this had on the development of family policy in these two countries.

This collection sets out to analyze the influence of women's movements on the emergence of Europe's welfare state from the 1880s to the 1950s, and the limits of that influence. It compares the women's movements - and social policies concerning women - in the dictatorships of Italy, Germany and Spain with the democracies in Britain, France and Scandinavia. It throws new lights on feminism, especially in the inter-war period.

This book reconstructs the economic thought of Italian women who produced written sources, and of those whose “only” legacy was their actions. The conceptual tools of economic history and the history of economic thought alike are used to reveal the economic ideas of women overlooked by historiography in four fields, namely as entrepreneurs, workers, educators, and politicians. As for the entrepreneurs, the book examines the businesswoman Isabella De Mari Doria (eighteenth century) and other figures active in both the industrialized and the informal sectors in the nineteenth century. The important issues of female employment and wage discrimination based on gender are analyzed, taking into account the debates of the period. In turn, the role of women in economic education in the first half of the twentieth century is reconstructed through the figure of Aurelia Josz, an educational entrepreneur who trained female agricultural entrepreneurs, managers, and teachers, and by exploring the presence of women at universities, both as students of economics and as educators and researchers. Lastly, the book takes a closer look at women involved in politics who dealt with economic issues: the socialist Anna Kuliscioff, the fascist Margherita Grassini Sarfatti, and the 21 women who took part in the Italian Constituent Assembly in June 1946. Given its scope, the book appeals to scholars and students of the history of economic thought, economic history, and women’s studies.

Defined less by geography than by demographic character, Block, Kansas, in many ways exemplifies the prevalent yet seldom-scrutinized ethnic, religion-based community of the rural midwest. Physically small, the town sprang up around four corners formed by crossroads. Spiritually strong and cohesive, it became the educational and cultural center for generations of German-Lutheran families. Block provided a religious and cultural oasis-a welcome transition for German-Lutheran immigrants faced with a new language and unfamiliar customs. Yet the tight bond between an ethnic society and a religion that shunned Americanism and the English language paradoxically slowed the transition and maintained a culturally isolated community well into the twentieth century. In Life at Four Corners, Carol Coburn analyzes the powerful combination of those ethnic and religious institutions that effectively resisted assimilation for nearly 80 years only to succumb to the influences of the outside world during the 1930s and 1940s. Emphasizing the formal and informal education provided by the church, school, and family, she examines the total process of how values, identities, and all aspects of culture were transmitted from generation to generation. "Few ethnic or community studies have focused on a 'village' community that defined itself less by geographic boundaries and more by ethnic and religious identity," writes Coburn. "The community's strong religious and ethnic identity, coupled with its homogeneity and rural isolation, provided a unique educational environment that was total, ongoing, and more pervasive than in most rural settings or ethnic urban environments." "This book is clearly and engagingly written. It opens a window on the inner life of an early rural settlement in Kansas and allows the reader to understand the values, fears, and beliefs of this important group of settlers. The author offers insight into the intersection of several variables, including gender, religion, and region."—Glenda Riley, author of The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains.

Clare Anderson provides a radical new reading of histories of empire and nation, showing that the history of punishment is not connected solely to the emergence of prisons and penitentiaries, but to histories of governance, occupation, and global connections across the world. Exploring punitive mobility to islands, colonies, and remote inland and border regions over a period of five centuries, she proposes a close and enduring connection between punishment, governance, repression, and nation and empire building, and reveals how states, imperial powers, and trading companies used convicts to satisfy various geo-political and social ambitions. Punitive mobility became intertwined with other forms of labour bondage, including enslavement, with convicts a key source of unfree labour that could be used to occupy territories. Far from passive subjects, however, convicts manifested their agency in various forms, including the extension of political ideology and cultural transfer, and vital contributions to contemporary knowledge production.

This 1996 book uses a local study to explore some of the more significant societal changes of the modern western world.

The food markets of Barcelona host thousands of customers daily, from tourists eager to sample fresh fruits and grilled seafood to neighborhood cooks in search of high-quality ingredients. While other countries experienced major shifts away from the public-market model in the twentieth century, Barcelona's food markets remained fundamental to the city's identity, economy, and culture. Montserrat Miller's Feeding Barcelona, 1714-1975 examines the causes behind the extraordinary vibrancy and tenacity of the Barcelonan market system. Miller argues that recurrent revolutionary uprisings in Barcelona, beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, forced ongoing collaboration between the public and private sectors to ensure adequate and effective food distribution. Municipal support permitted small-scale food sellers in Barcelona to survive in a period more commonly characterized by increasing capitalization in food retail, while the importance of food markets to Barcelona's social networks enhanced vendors' ability to recognize and adapt to changing customer demands. In addition, a high number of stalls owned by women contributed both to the financial well-being of vendor families and to the sociability patterns that placed neighborhood food markets at the center of daily life in the city. The shared commitment of vendors, shoppers, and government officials to a market model of food sales created the lasting and unique market system that persists in Barcelona to this day. Drawing from extensive archival research and numerous interviews with individuals at all levels of the market system, Feeding Barcelona, 1714-1975 is the first detailed history of the historical and social influences that create urban food markets.

In this delicious book, noted food scholar Carole M. Counihan presents a compelling and artfully told narrative about family and food in late 20th-century Florence. Based on solid research, Counihan examines how family, and especially gender have changed in Florence since the end of World War II to the present, giving us a portrait of the changing nature of modern life as exemplified through food and foodways.