Project MUSE®: Social Science History - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Social Science History.daily12026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 23, no. 4 (1999) through current issueLatest Articles: Social Science HistoryTWOProject MUSE®Social Science History1527-80340145-5532Latest articles in Social Science History. Feed provided by Project MUSE®The pursuit of well-being: Metrics and evidence
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980084
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In a July 13, 2023 article titled "Farewell, Mark Rutte, the Tiggerish Dutch prime minister," the Economist described the departing prime minister of the Netherlands, despite his impressive 13 years in the role, as not only "Bouncy, endlessly optimistic, and devoid of ideology," but also quite likely to have his policy agenda forgotten. The article goes on to argue that being forgettable may actually be the most appealing aspect of Rutte's long tenure: "For there are worse things for a polity than to be led by a cheerful, pragmatic and dedicated leader. … Mr Rutte inherited a rich, reasonably well-run country and leaves behind a rich, reasonably well-run country. He gave his compatriots a few more years of what
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallThe pursuit of well-being: Metrics and evidence2026-01-21text/htmlen-USThe pursuit of well-being: Metrics and evidence2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®985842026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Income Mobility before Industrialization: Evidence from South Africa's Cape Colony
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980085
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From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, abundant land and low disease risk in settler colonies enabled a continued inflow of European migrants that opened up new farmland at relative low cost (Acemoglu et al. 2001; Engerman and Sokoloff 2012). Europeans could arrive in the newly colonized territories almost empty handed, it is said, and gradually accumulate wealth by tilling fresh land or as wage workers in the high-wage environment (Carter and Sutch 2013). Mainland North America is often cited as an example of how poor but hard-working Europeans were able to escape poverty in Europe and build a more prosperous future in the "New World" (Abramitzky and Boustan 2017), and evidence from South America suggests
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallIncome Mobility before Industrialization: Evidence from South Africa's Cape Colony2026-01-21text/htmlen-USIncome Mobility before Industrialization: Evidence from South Africa's Cape Colony2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®1893332026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21State servants, cash, and credit market modernizations in early modern Stockholm
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980086
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When he died in 1691, the lackey Jöns Nelsson had no family and no heirs; when the officials came to create a probate inventory the only witnesses present were his landlord, from whom he rented a single room, and two friends who had promised to arrange his funeral. Despite his modest lifestyle, the probate inventory reveals an intricate network of credit in which Nelsson played a major role. Under the heading of gold and silver, the notaries listed a silver pitcher with jewels, three silver cups, two precious stones enclosed in an envelope, a ring with a precious stone, and more, all pawned by fellow servants of the Royal Court and noble courtiers in exchange for cash loans. At the same time, the lackey had two
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallState servants, cash, and credit market modernizations in early modern Stockholm2026-01-21text/htmlen-USState servants, cash, and credit market modernizations in early modern Stockholm2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®1368762026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Finding home in Irish and German migrant letters: A comparative analysis
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980087
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Finding home has been a pivotal question throughout the history of migration.1 But how migrants negotiate their belonging to different locations and a sense of "being home" remains underexplored in at least two regards: First, how do feelings of home differ between migrant groups in one host society? And second, what ideas about home do migrants send back to those friends and family members that have not migrated? A deeper understanding of the question about where migrants locate and how they make sense of home seems crucial to understand processes of integration and emotional belonging (Ralph and Staeheli 2011: 522; Boccagni and Kusenbach 2020: 597), which complement statistical indicators related to labor market
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallFinding home in Irish and German migrant letters: A comparative analysis2026-01-21text/htmlen-USFinding home in Irish and German migrant letters: A comparative analysis2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®1755582026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Human capital of the US deaf population from 1850 to 1910
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980088
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Human capital improves labor productivity and is famously difficult to measure directly (Romer 1990). In competitive markets, the consequence of greater human capital is greater labor demand, higher wages, and greater employment. Especially in historical cases, it is difficult to identify individuals with greater or lesser human capital. Using US Census data between 1850 and 1910, we compare human capital investment decisions and economic outcomes between the hearing and deaf populations – who intrinsically differ by endowed human capital composition. Historically, deafness was unique among human capital endowments because it was irreversible and usually occurred congenitally or prior to other measured human
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallHuman capital of the US deaf population from 1850 to 19102026-01-21text/htmlen-USHuman capital of the US deaf population from 1850 to 19102026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®2043792026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21The Legacy of Temporary Employment in Francoist Spain
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980089
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Since the mid-1980s, the Spanish labor market has registered by far the highest rate of fixed-term contracts among Western countries. With rates that range between 25 and 34 percent of total employment in the last three decades, Spain has more than doubled the average for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Thus, the "Spanish anomaly" has attracted the attention of researchers to understand the causes behind the high incidence of this type of employment in Spain across the decades and in comparison to other countries.Although interpretations of this phenomenon are varied, the flexibilization reforms started in the mid-1980s are often understood as the beginning of this
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallThe Legacy of Temporary Employment in Francoist Spain2026-01-21text/htmlen-USThe Legacy of Temporary Employment in Francoist Spain2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®1832662026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Deciphering long-term labor skill development in Italy, 1871–2011
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980090
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When machines replace workers, do they replace those with lower, middle, or higher skills? Does technological change lead to upskilling or deskilling, or both, that is, polarization? Underscoring the need for comparative research, we look at the historical record over a long period. We use a standard demographic source – the censuses in the form of the new Unified Italian Historical Census Dataset (UIHC). This dataset homogenizes census results. It connects Italian occupational designators to the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO), and thus to HISCO-based measures of economic sector and specialization, and to HISCLASS, a social class scheme that contains measures of skill. Thus
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallDeciphering long-term labor skill development in Italy, 1871–20112026-01-21text/htmlen-USDeciphering long-term labor skill development in Italy, 1871–20112026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®2076412026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Vision and method in global historical sociology
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980091
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The once-neglected Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804 has, over recent years, begun to receive considerable scholarly attention (Eddins 2022; Ferrer 2014; Hazareesingh 2020).1 This work has shown the ways in which the revolution in Haiti formed part of a transnational field of contention that brought into question multiple strands of late eighteenth-century international order: the superiority of European coercive power; the legitimacy of colonial rule; an Atlantic order premised on the trafficking of African slaves; and the ways in which racism and slavery challenged notions of liberty and emancipation. The events of 1791–1804 also demonstrated the ways in which an uprising in a "peripheral" country could generate
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallVision and method in global historical sociology2026-01-21text/htmlen-USVision and method in global historical sociology2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®1868912026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Ethics of Archives: Improving Historical Social Science Through the Consideration of Research on Violence
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980092
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In recent years, social scientists have "(re)discovered history" by visiting archives, collecting documents, and analyzing their findings to answer questions concerning violence (Finkel et al. 2019: 2). This follows a broader trend in historical social science, whereby scholars who study the past increasingly draw on primary sources (Adams et al. 2005: 27; Mayrl and Wilson 2020: 12). Historians, of course, have long contended with how best to conduct archival research, and issues of ethics in archival research have become a standard element of historical training as well as a popular focus in information studies programs.1 Yet, their peers in the social sciences rarely have similar training on the methods and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallEthics of Archives: Improving Historical Social Science Through the Consideration of Research on Violence2026-01-21text/htmlen-USEthics of Archives: Improving Historical Social Science Through the Consideration of Research on Violence2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®1867412026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Mosaic Database: Consolidation, Innovation, and Challenges in the Comparative Family Demography of Historical Europe
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980093
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The family has been the focus of interest for generations of scholars convinced that studying it offers significant insights into populations, societies, and even entire nations (Le Play 1877–1879). One of the most powerful ideas that fired the imaginations of countless researchers was the shared belief that the characteristics of historical family patterns in Europe could be identified, recorded, and analyzed in structural and numerical terms and that these patterns could be understood by paying attention to the phenomenon of household co-residence (Anderson 1980; Hammel and Laslett 1974; Ruggles 2012; Wall 1995).1 As part of the broader agenda of unearthing past demographic regimes, since the mid-1960s a number
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallMosaic Database: Consolidation, Innovation, and Challenges in the Comparative Family Demography of Historical Europe2026-01-21text/htmlen-USMosaic Database: Consolidation, Innovation, and Challenges in the Comparative Family Demography of Historical Europe2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®2128262026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Symposium on Alexander J. Field's book The Economic Consequences of US Mobilization for the Second World War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980094
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Alexander J. Field's recent book (2022) offers a fresh re-examination of key aspects of the US involvement in World War II and the consequences of that engagement for long-run economic development. While focusing primarily on the supply-side context of the wartime economy, Field argues that manufacturing productivity actually declined during the war. This was due to production being shifted to industries and sectors with little or no prior experience in such manufacturing. Furthermore, Field asserts that the war interrupted the positive strides related to innovations and human capital that had been taking place before the conflict in the 1930s (for a longer review, see Eloranta 2023).This book is part of a broader
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallSymposium on Alexander J. Field's book The Economic Consequences of US Mobilization for the Second World War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022)2026-01-21text/htmlen-USSymposium on Alexander J. Field's book The Economic Consequences of US Mobilization for the Second World War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022)2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®193272026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Reflections on Alexander Field's The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War: An Introduction
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980095
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In his persuasively argued and provocative new book, Alexander Field attacks the frequently made claim that there was a series of production miracles in the United States during World War II.He begins with carefully constructed estimates of total factor productivity (TFP). He finds, surprisingly for those of us reared on the production-miracle narrative, that TFP declined during the war. This is a counterpoint to his equally surprising finding that TFP rose in the Great Depression. But why did TFP decline during the war? Partly, the decline was simply the result of the inevitable temporary fall in output that occurs when production is shifted from one product to another. Field gives the example of the Ford Motor
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallReflections on Alexander Field's The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War: An Introduction2026-01-21text/htmlen-USReflections on Alexander Field's The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War: An Introduction2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®224222026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Comments on Alexander Field: The Economic Consequences of Mobilization for the Second World War
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980096
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This excellent book provides an impressive blend of careful quantification through total factor productivity analysis with a cogent and well-documented narrative account of key episodes of U.S. mobilization during the Second World War. Table 8.10 (Field 2022: 337) titled "Field-Gordon TFP Growth Reconciliation" is an exemplary model for illustrating the issues and margins for disagreement that can arise in total factor productivity (hereafter TFP) analysis.Field's basic thrust challenges the common view that U.S. mobilization for war constituted an economic miracle or at least a major economic policy success, arguing instead that the U.S. faced major production challenges and inefficiencies. I find Field's argument
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallComments on Alexander Field: The Economic Consequences of Mobilization for the Second World War2026-01-21text/htmlen-USComments on Alexander Field: The Economic Consequences of Mobilization for the Second World War2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®157672026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Commentary on The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War by Alexander Field
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980097
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Alexander Field's new book gives us new estimates of US private sector productivity in 1941–48 using advanced methods similar to those used by the official statistical agencies. The book focuses especially on the manufacturing sector, which was centrally important to the nation's effort in World War II. Based on data about investment by the firms in that sector, he has constructed estimates of capital stocks and can construct total factor productivity estimates that take both labor and capital into account.The overall finding is that productivity growth was slow during this period, although the US did famously produce staggering numbers of aircraft, ships, and tanks. The finding makes sense as Field explains it:
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallCommentary on The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War by Alexander Field2026-01-21text/htmlen-USCommentary on The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War by Alexander Field2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®79472026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21Understating the economic consequences of wartime mobilization
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980098
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In the preface to The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War, Alexander Field argues that novel arguments are generally met by "one of two objections: either it is wrong, or we already knew this" (p. vii). I believe that while this may generally be true, there is a third possibility that exists. A novel argument can suffer from the innovator's prudence in stating it. Simply put, he could fail to be as forceful as he could be. This is the objection I raise toward Field's work. In fact, it is not so much an objection as it is a "qualified endorsement."To see how this could be the case, it is first necessary to summarize the claims. Field departs from discussions that were initiated by
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallUnderstating the economic consequences of wartime mobilization2026-01-21text/htmlen-USUnderstating the economic consequences of wartime mobilization2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®139722026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21The economic consequences of U.S. mobilization for the Second World War: Reflections on the symposium
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/980099
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The central arguments of my book are first, that contrary to conventional wisdom, productivity in U.S. manufacturing declined during the Second World War, and second, that little of the learning associated with producing military durables had lasting supply-side benefits. The main reason productivity declined was that the war forced sudden, radical, and ultimately temporary changes in the product mix. The main reason the benefits of learning failed to endure is that most were product-specific, and soon after or in some cases even before VJ day, the United States stopped making most of the goods whose production had given rise to the learning.These arguments are based on a blend of statistical and narrative
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/188/image/coversmallThe economic consequences of U.S. mobilization for the Second World War: Reflections on the symposium2026-01-21text/htmlen-USThe economic consequences of U.S. mobilization for the Second World War: Reflections on the symposium2026-01-212026TWOProject MUSE®291822026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-21