The Growth of Population in Eighteenth-Century England: A Critical Reappraisal

1993 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 743-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Razzell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Socioeconomic Groups ◽  
Brick And Tile ◽  
Smallpox Inoculation ◽  
Major Reduction ◽  
Major Hypothesis

Population growth in eighteenth-century England was due mainly to a fall in mortality, which was particularly marked during the first half of the century. The fall affected all socioeconomic groups and does not appear to have occurred for primarily economic reasons. In addition to an explanation involving the introduction of smallpox inoculation, the major hypothesis considered in this article is that the significant improvement in domestic hygiene associated with the rebuilding of housing in brick and tile brought about a major reduction in mortality.

Decline and Renewal (1713–1750)

1997 ◽  
pp. 195-215
Author(s):  
Jonathan Israel
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Relevant Factor ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Manufacturing Activity

This chapter explains that the period 1713–50 was one of sharp deterioration in European Jewry's demographic position. It is true that a steady increase persisted in many parts, but, from the second decade of the eighteenth century onwards, the population of Europe as a whole began to burgeon once more so that, other than in the eastern territories of Poland, Jewish population growth now lagged well behind that of the rest. Moreover, and a more immediately relevant factor in the economic and cultural decline of European Jewry during the eighteenth century, practically all the leading Jewish urban centres displayed a marked incapacity for growth. Previously, from 1570 down to 1713, the economic policies of the European states, concentrating on the promotion of long-distance commerce, had encouraged the increasing integration of the Jewish trade network into the European economy as a whole, and this had laid the basis for the revival of Jewish life in progress in central and western Europe since the late sixteenth century. After 1713, however, a less favourable trend set in. Whilst the European states were still ruled by mercantilist notions, they now adopted more comprehensively protectionist policies, concentrating on the promotion of manufacturing activity rather than long-distance trade.

Nutrition, Population Growth, and the Industrial Revolution in England

1990 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Komlos
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Nutritional Status ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Urban Sector ◽  
Recent Memory ◽  
The Middle Ages

This study proposes a conceptualization of the industrial revolution in England in terms of the interaction of demographic and economic processes linked by the nutritional status of the population. By the eighteenth century the English economy had reached an important conjuncture. It had a larger accumulation of capital, and a larger urban sector capable of expanding commerce and production, than ever before. In addition, the population was well nourished by preindustrial standards and was about to benefit from the propitious harvest conditions of the 1730s and to procreate at a rate unsurpassed within recent memory (Wrigley and Schofield 1981). Population growth accelerated and had a market-expanding effect in a Boserupian fashion, triggering the industrial revolution; the roots of this transformation, however, extended back into the Middle Ages (Jones 1981; Boserup 1981). Thus the factors that have been regarded as crucial in unleashing the industrial revolution, such as the rise in the rate of saving, are less important within the framework presented here than the acceleration in the growth of a well-nourished population in a relatively developed economy.

‘We could not answer to ourselves not doing it’: maternal obligations and knowledge of smallpox inoculation in eighteenth-century elite society

2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (258) ◽  
pp. 754-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Esfandiary
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Disease Management ◽  
English Version ◽  
Live Virus ◽  
Humoral Medicine ◽  
Smallpox Inoculation ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
The Way

Abstract Most often depicted as the precursor to the much simpler and safer practice of Jennerian cowpox vaccination, the eighteenth-century practice of inoculating against smallpox with the live virus reveals much about the way in which pre-modern mothers and medics understood and made decisions about disease management in children. Examined from the perspective of those mothers who ultimately sanctioned its use and helped to advance the practice on English soil, despite a complex set of possible eventualities - from uncertain conferral of immunity to death - this article argues that provided an ‘English’ version of it was carried out in strict accordance with the age-old doctrines of humoral medicine, mothers deemed it an entirely rational act devoid of ‘risk’ in our modern sense. These findings run counter to established narratives asserting blanket professionalization and medicalization of childcare during this period, and they nuance the role Lady Mary Wortley Montagu played in introducing the practice she had encountered in Turkey.

Appropriations and Contestations of the Islamic Nomenclature in Muslim North India

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-110
Author(s):  
Jan-Peter Hartung
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
South Asia ◽  
North India ◽  
The Political ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Socioeconomic Groups ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ruling Elites

This article comprises a twofold attempt: the first is to establish a semantic field that revolves around the concept of siyāsat—roughly equivalent to the political—in Muslim South Asia; the second is to trace semantic shifts in this field and to identify circumstances that may have prompted those shifts. It is argued here that the terms that constitute the semantic field of the political oscillate between two sociolinguistic traditions: a strongly Islamicate Arabic one, and a more imperially oriented Persian one. Another linguistic shift is indicated with the replacement of Persian by Urdu as the dominant literary idiom in and beyond North India since the eighteenth century. The aim is to serve only as a starting point for a more intensive discussion that brings in other materials and perspectives, thus helping to elucidate the tension between normative aspirations by ruling elites and actual political praxes by variant socioeconomic groups.

Using the Newspaper to Disseminate Vasectomy Information in Kenya

1993 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
David John Wilkinson ◽  
Pamela Fenney Lyman ◽  
Katherine Mason ◽  
Grace E. Wambwa
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Family Planning ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Population Growth Rate ◽  
Socioeconomic Groups ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
High Population Growth ◽  
Large Response

Recent research in Kenya shows that, although there is still a high population growth rate, there is increasing interest among men as well as women in family planning and in limiting family size. Vasectomy, however, is little known and practiced in Kenya. A major reason for this is a general lack of knowledge about the procedure and where it may be obtained. Little effort has been put into addressing the barriers to vasectomy acceptance in Kenya, partly because of the commonly held assumption that Kenyan men would not be interested in the method. Innovative Communication Systems, with the support of the Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception, implemented a study using the print media to examine this perception. Advertisements providing information about the method were placed in newspapers and a magazine. An unexpectedly large response was received—over 800 written requests for information from all parts of the country. The majority of inquiries were from rural areas, and there was a high proportion of requests from the coastal district, a Muslim area generally considered to be extremely resistant to family planning. A large proportion of inquiries came through a Kiswahili newspaper appealing to lower socioeconomic groups.

Business of Fiction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Suarez
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Book History ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Luxury Products

The eighteenth century witnessed a remarkable proliferation of print, with annual publications in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland increasing by more than 350 per cent from the first decade to the last. This chapter relates the growth in novel publishing between 1695 and 1774 to population growth and the growth in literacy. Recent research links the book trade keeping prices artificially high to readers’ consumption of novels as luxury products and evidence of social status. This trend is considered, along with remuneration for authors; the market for fiction; Irish reprints; continuations and spin-offs; abridgements and serializations; translations; circulating libraries; and the significance of book history to understanding the emergence and development of the novel.

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