Medieval kinship structures varied according to period and region. In the course of the Middle Ages, however, a unitary kinship system was increasingly imposed on the laity by the church. This chapter aims to answer some precise questions about the rationality of this kinship system. Like most good questions about rationality, these are ultimately derived from Max Weber. Firstly, the chapter talks about the surface rationale propagated by the church. The distinction between 'instrumental rationality' and 'value rationality' seems to me especially useful for the study of kinship rules. In Weber's conceptual scheme these two kinds of rationality were complementary. The 'four degrees' rule may have been irrelevant to England, but in Italy and in other areas, where clans were the norm, the kinship law regulated by the popes was a powerful force for lay solidarity.

This chapter focuses on the over-arching methodology of a research project, which guides the work that is conducted in a museum, library or archive. Using examples of contemporary historical scholarship, the choices researchers make about their primary sources, methods of analysis and theoretical frameworks are unpacked case by case. This chapter also deals with the difficulties of working on material culture that no longer survives, a challenge common to historical studies.

The debates surrounding what constitutes ‘disability’ and what are considered appropriate reactions to disabling conditions are highlighted in this examination of the historical background to psychiatric, eugenic and wider societal responses to inebriation. The author explains how alcohol addiction became seen as what she terms a ‘borderland’ disability, a condition that should be recognised as both a cause and a symptom of disability, rather than an illness or a life-style choice. Furthermore, inebriation needs to be evaluated through the longer-term consequences of constitutional weakness or feeble-mindedness that might be detected in the offspring of inebriants. Discourses and policies that connected the concepts of alcoholism and degeneration were prominent sites at which disability was constructed in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The chapter emphasises the roles that gender and social class played in eliciting responses that demonstrated either compassion or prejudice towards the debilitating effects of alcohol addiction.

This chapter examines the Mao era (1949–1976), when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched many initiatives, the Great Leap Forward being one, to advance the country economically. But differences within the CCP led to a fierce power struggle that resulted in the Cultural Revolution. This brought the country to the brink of collapse and unprecedented suffering to the Chinese people and economy.

This chapter examines the concept and the function of theory. I argue that social theory is ‘good theory’, i.e. worth your while, only if it adds something to the perception of the social world that cannot be perceived otherwise: theory in this sense must be somewhat mysterious (and mystifying). If it is not, it is just the banal, wordy, laborious and often pompous restatement of the obvious.

‘Disability’ is a wide and multifaceted concept and Victorian elites drew heavily on a whole range of ways of classifying not only sections within society but also behaviours that they considered to be socially and morally deviant. Notably, through the application of Poor Laws in the United Kingdom and beyond, what Victorians were guided by their perceptions, on the one hand, of able-bodiedness and the ability to perform productive and self-supporting work and, on the other hand, of people who were disabled from working through a range of physical, sensory and mental impairments. They increasingly tried to differentiate between those whom they considered to be worthy of aid and those they deemed to be unworthy of assistance and support, through being unable or unwilling to find employment. The chapters presented in this collection represent some of the ways in which support was offered or withheld and how those deemed to be worthy of such support were identified.

This chapter considers those in their teens and twenties whom society recognised as physically young and still in a developmental stage. It focuses on the image of and attitudes towards youths and the opportunities open to them. The growing strength of the youth's body was matched by an increasing sharpness in the mind. Youth has had an association with social disorder, and the young in late medieval society were no exception. Beyond theory, medieval society at large acknowledged the existence of young people who were going through a period of formation and transformation before full adulthood. This might be because they were still pursuing education and employment training, had not yet received their inheritance, or had not yet married and taken responsibility for their own lives and those of others. The chapter highlights the type of training and life experiences gained by adolescents as they gradually assumed their adult roles.

This chapter recounts a heated debate between historians of Stalinism in the pages of the scholarly journal The Russian Review in 1986 and 1987. Sparked off by a review essay by the social historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, it led to a broad range of emotional responses to Stalinism and the politics of history-writing in the late Cold War.

The uniformed woman has widely been seen as an emblem of modernity. By utilising both public and personal accounts, this chapter discusses external perceptions of the FANY and also self-representations, in order to examine the uniformed woman as an emblem of modernity. It considers how members negotiated the public’s voyeuristic fascination with their activities as well as the hostile reactions they encountered, and examines how they navigated existing discourses of gender and class to forge a space for themselves in the public domain wearing masculine-inflected clothing. This chapter examines debates over the FANY’s public representation and sartorial choices both before and during the war, and by doing so contributes to understandings of how martial dress was appropriated by an elite group of women and with what consequences. As such, this chapter demonstrates how members of the first women’s corps to adopt military uniform manoeuvred themselves from being dismissed as ‘hussies’ and ‘freaks’ into a position where they undertook national service as ‘lady soldiers’.

This chapter assesses art historical perspectives in relation to writing about Land Art and environmental art movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and the work that continues in this vein. Without discussing case studies of art practice, it examines ideas and ideological framing that emerge from a more theoretical position. Contemporary art historical accounts are discussed, identifying the ideological and methodological possibilities they offer for the discipline of art history. As a complement to discussions of ‘expanded sculpture’, the literature of environmental aesthetics and psychology is assessed for its relevance to ecocritical art history approaches. The chapter also examines a seemingly tangential area normally ghettoised as ‘technical art history’ – including the study of the chemical, material and historical aspects of art within an ecological frame of reference, boosted by a new-found interest in more philosophical aspects of materialism.

The Jewish community was fundamentally a male society, patriarchal in nature, where every facet of life manifested male superiority and control. Nevertheless, the women of this community played an important and often central role in every group and social system. The change in the status of women may be viewed as the result of an overall social change in a Jewish society that was struggling for survival. From the tenth century and until their expulsion towards the end of the medieval period, the Jews of Europe lived mainly in communal settings in Christian towns. Throughout the eleventh century, the Jews were the only people living in northern Europe who did not accept Christianity. Christianity could not remain indifferent to Judaism and the Christians could not ignore the Jews dwelling in their midst. Both groups competed for the title of 'heir to the true religion'.

One theme of this book is how female actors were more prone to be negatively judged in terms of their appearance and this occurred virtually from the outset of Hattie Jacques’s career. The supporting part of Matron in Carry On Nurse came after more than ten years of stage, radio and cinema experience and it was Jacques’s ability that elevated what could have been a standard-issue gorgon into a national icon. Unfortunately, the part also created a straitjacket of typecasting from which Jacques was only occasionally liberated with the likes of Carry On Cabby. The art-house short The Pleasure Garden stands as a reminder of an actress whose range was so neglected by Pinewood.