History questions not worth their own thread III
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I was proposing a mechanism for why fertility rates might be different which you seemed to dismiss? That might not be the case but I'm hard pressed to tell just now where and what it is your saying.
From another post.
say1988 said:
From another post.
The direct cause of the relative decrease in the growth rate of the French population was almost certainly a decrease in the birth/fertility rate. It would be interesting to see how these compare with other countries as it would ignore the high emigration rates of other countries. As well as removing the second major variable for population growth.
Further looking at the map made me question the reason British growth plateaued and German population continued to rise. Separating migration and natural change would be indicators as to which side this change was on.
Of course there is an underlying cause for that relative decrease, which I didn't even hazard a guess at because I just don't know.
Other states that had significantly higher population growth in this period were Italy, Austria-Hungary and Russia and this seems to be from the standard lowering of infant mortality and higher life expectancy that goes along with rapid development in poorer areas. Could it be that the Eastern (Polish) areas of Germany were continuing to climb in population much more rapidly than the rest of the country? This might explain Germany's continued growth.
Because you simply gave a reason for decreasing fertility rates and said that it was another option as opposed to decreasing fertility rates. And all I said was that decreasing the number of children born to the average woman was a decrease in fertility rates.
Won't give enough of a jolt due to the low (sub-15%) Polish proportion of the population.
Anyways, Weber notes that there was a divergence between the birth-rates of the cities and countryside, but that wasn't as marked as might be suspected; some areas had high relative birth rates, some much lower; though on balance France's birth rate was lower than the European average. More general factors militating against population increases include: a high infant mortality rate as a result of infanticide, abandonment and interestingly enough wet-nursery which seems to have had a hellish toll on babies farmed out... Marriage was another big one: delayed marriages were common (and correlated strongly with a reduction in fertility, live births per women), marriages between young men and older widows were also a Done Thing in the towns’ particularly and simply not getting married - celibacy. Conscious planning was also a big one, it seems, with peasants in particular able and willing to abort 'by any means necessary' unwanted babies and generally undertaking to reduce the risk of pregnancy through working to the moon for instance. You could describe these as the 'tatics' of population control.
The overriding strategy seems to have been the perception of a growth in wealth, which spurred parents to ask themselves if having lots of kids was a good idea considering that the little buggers left you poor till they grew up. The flipside of this observation is that where before children had been a good form of retirement investment, as the period drags on this became less and less a sure thing because children tended to move away. This is kind of general but it seems to have been a function of a whole bunch of factors which interacted at different levels - individual, regional and national - in such a manner as to keep the swimmers away from the goal. In terms of empirical studies Weber suggests there isn't a single good one that establishes the precise mechanisms for the French decline in population. But that if there were it would likely find that the process was highly variable with some areas undergoing strong growth, even as others stagnated or saw falls in population.
The overriding strategy seems to have been the perception of a growth in wealth, which spurred parents to ask themselves if having lots of kids was a good idea considering that the little buggers left you poor till they grew up. The flipside of this observation is that where before children had been a good form of retirement investment, as the period drags on this became less and less a sure thing because children tended to move away. This is kind of general but it seems to have been a function of a whole bunch of factors which interacted at different levels - individual, regional and national - in such a manner as to keep the swimmers away from the goal. In terms of empirical studies Weber suggests there isn't a single good one that establishes the precise mechanisms for the French decline in population. But that if there were it would likely find that the process was highly variable with some areas undergoing strong growth, even as others stagnated or saw falls in population.
GoodGame
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Prior to mass media, and skipping mythic figures (e.g. Helen of Troy), who was the sexiest sex symbol (e.g. a historic Marilyn Monroe) in history? Or maybe less subjective, who was the most influential sex symbol, prior to mass media (again skipping mythic figures)?
Male or female (or other)?
I'd guess Cleopatra VII. Competition might come from Nefertiti.
Male or female (or other)?
I'd guess Cleopatra VII. Competition might come from Nefertiti.
Surely there couldn't really be sex symbols before photography and film made it possible for someone's image to be widely distributed and recognised. So to ask about sex symbols before mass media seems to me rather like asking about film stars before cinema: it's the mass media that make sex symbols possible.
Cheezy the Wiz
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Well in a manner of speaking, I guess women like Lucretia Borgia or Cleopatra VII could be considered sex symbols based on their reputation as femme fatales in their time, even if people had no idea what they really looked like.
But they would have such a limited reputation. How many ordinary people in Cleopatra's day, or in Lucretia Borgia's, would have had any idea of what they were meant to be like? And even if they did, simply having a reputation as a seductress doesn't make someone a sex symbol, as a careful study of the graffiti in any school lavatory will tell you. Being told that someone is sexy is not the same thing as seeing how sexy they are for yourselves. A symbol is someone who has an instantly recognisable image to which people can genuinely react, and who has charisma that can engage directly with large numbers of people. I'm not convinced that anyone before the age of mass media could have managed this, because someone whom you know only from descriptions or from statues and paintings is not someone whose charisma can reach out and grab you. A sex symbol is a celebrity, and celebrity as we know it is a modern invention; famous people of earlier times were famous primarily through word of mouth, and only relatively few people would actually experience what they were like in the direct way that is necessary for someone to be a symbol. The closest I can think of would be a preacher like George Whitefield or John Wesley, who spoke to hundreds of thousands of people over the course of their careers; or a politician like Gladstone, who did the same thing; or a major actor like David Garrick whose performances might be seen by large numbers of people. But even figures such as these could not hope to attain the level of celebrity - or, crucially, the direct and personal link to large numbers of people who might see and hear them and thus engage with them on the level required for symbolhood - enjoyed by the icons of the twentieth century such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and the like, simply because their audiences were still too limited. And I can't think of any such person who could reasonably be called a "sex symbol" unless you have very unusual tastes.
Hornblower
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The mysterious Mona Lisa?
privatehudson
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Hey you're the one who goes around studying graffiti in school lavatories...
Neither. People didn't 'catch up' (whatever that means: most people were at about the same level). Instead, Indian GDP per capita and population remained essentially static, while European GDP per capita and population rose rather a great deal. The net result was that the Indian position in absolute terms viz. a viz. Europe (but also other areas: the America's for instance) declined. There was some measure of economic decline under British rule but that was confined to some areas and was offset by others that saw substantial growth. Moreover, wealth became more concentrated, and fixed - in capital - so while GDP in the aggregate tended to rise (albiet at a slower rate than Europe) it was falling into a small number of hands, so GDP per capita tended to decline on average by something like 20% - 30%. That's the major part of it: the other side is that we're not actually all that sure about Indian economic figures in general. So there's a fair amount of uncertainty as to how big or small India was at any given period. So the relative decline might not be as pronounced as some think.
aronnax
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What was the possibility of Britain acquiring both Sumatra and Malacca from the Dutch in the 1824 treaty?
ParkCungHee
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Why did anyone even want Sumatra in the first place.
Also, other then the U.S.A. did any American States consider overseas colonization?
Also, other then the U.S.A. did any American States consider overseas colonization?
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