In post-World War II agricultural research, a new perspective on “peasantsociety” developed. This approach is still vigorous today and impliesthat peasant society—defined by subsistence production, the safety-firstprinciple, and a stable village system with moral obligations—leads toconservative behavior toward change. It also assumes that only external forcescan tear down the system and force peasants into markets. However, manyresearchers throughout Europe have challenged these opinions of peasantmentality and peasant behavior. This study investigates five parishes insouthern Sweden (Scania) to analyze the behavior of peasants during theagricultural transformation (c. 1750–1850). Important organizational andinstitutional changes, such as enclosures, the emergence of a formal creditmarket, and the growing land market, are analyzed. Results reveal that somepeasants actively participated in the agricultural transformation in a number ofways and that peasant farmers in Scania did not demonstrate a conservativeattitude toward change.

According to David Mayhew (2002: 58-59, 35), “Neither statistics norstories bear out the canonical realignments calendar of 1860, 1896, and1932,” and “no certifiable electoral realignment has occurredsince 1932.” This study examines the national division of the U.S.presidential vote and House of Representatives seats from 1868 to 2004 todetermine whether realignments occurred in 1896, 1932, and 1968 and whetherother elections might be better designated as realignments. The analysisdemonstrates the onset of realignments in the 1894-96 and 1930-32 elections anda staggered realignment in recent decades. Republicans registered significantdurable gains in presidential voting starting in 1968 and in congressionalelections in 1994. The analysis also finds evidence of a realignment favoringthe Democrats in 1874-76.

Twentieth-century American men and women were often unable to live up to or downto their own fertility ideals. In a national random sample of 11,126ever-married men and women over the age of 44, “discrepantfertility”—the difference between ideal fertility and completedfertility—was common. This article seeks to identify the causes of suchdiscrepancies, and findings suggest that the most important exogenous factor is“birth cohort.” Those born prior to or after the Great Depressionwere prone to exhibit negative discrepant fertility, having had fewer childrenthan they thought ideal, while those born during the Depression—theparents of the baby boom—were characterized by significant positivediscrepant fertility, having had more children than they thought ideal. It isargued that these cohort effects are closely related to social and economicconditions that prevailed as twentieth-century Americans came of age andassessed their professional and familial prospects.

The origins and role of corporate landholding and land redistribution practices over arable land in seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Japan have posed a quandary for scholars. The most common forms are widely seen as means to spread the impact of flooding among villagers in districts that are considered to be at great risk from flood hazards. Such conclusions are often based on individual village studies. In contrast, this study takes a regional approach and tests the validity of this relationship using geographic information systems technology experimentally. This experiment reveals a variety of anomalies that, taken together, suggest that any link between natural hazard risk and the presence or absence of redistribution practices is more subtle than typical explanations assert.