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List of Illustrations
- Vincent Lagendijk, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Electrifying Europe
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 20 January 2021
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Contents
- Frank Schipper, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Driving Europe
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 19 January 2021
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Summary
- Frank Schipper, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Driving Europe
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 19 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 311-314
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This book concerns the relation between European integration and plans for the construction and use of continental road networks. In linking these two phenomena it draws on recent scholarly work that looks at the ‘hidden integration’ of Europe, a process in which large-scale infrastructure development has played a key role. A core assumption of this approach is that European infrastructural integration was largely organized outside the European Union and its predecessors and began before the Second World War. The thesis unravels which European highway networks were proposed, by whom and why. It also analyzes ideas about the operation of such networks across national borders. Above all, it scrutinizes the political and economic visions underpinning such plans and proposals. The focus on European road network development makes a transnational contribution to the available literature, which usually remains restricted to national developments and does not analyze how infrastructures function across borders.
The book basically covers the entire twentieth century, but devotes most attention to 1920-1960, a period that was unusually rich in proposals of the kind this research seeks to understand. The thesis identifies a set of international organizations, called ‘Europe's system builders,’ as crucial actors for European infrastructure development and a strategic research site offering the archival holdings that allow investigating the relation between roads and Europe. The empirical part of the thesis is built around two parallel sets of chapters entitled ‘Setting the Stage’ (chapters two and five), ‘Roads to Europe’ (chapters three and six), and ‘Driving Europe’ (chapters four and seven).
Chapter two starts in the late nineteenth century. It demonstrates how a series of races between European capitals and early motorized tourism highlighted automobility as a phenomenon that cut across national borders. These activities soon lay bare several problems in the cross-border use of roads. Automobile and touring clubs were among the first to seriously attempt to tackle the problems individual motorists ran into. Although the First World War interrupted their activities, these organizations lay the groundwork for post-war discussions. The chapter ends by discussing the origins of the League of Nations. The Geneva organization has often been portrayed as a failed attempt at international cooperation.
6 - Markets, Prices and Consumption. Herring Trade in the North Sea and Baltic Region
- Bo Poulsen, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Dutch Herring
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 15 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 82-105
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Introduction
This chapter presents an overview of the long-term trends in terms of trading patterns for salted herring in the area of the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and their respective hinterlands in the period between approx. 1600-1850. The market is defined as ‘the interaction between supply and demand to determine the market price and corresponding quantity bought and sold.’ In this period the north European herring market underwent several changes. These changes are analysed from four different perspectives:
The first main section examines the main trading routes for herring in Northern Europe on the basis of records from the Sound toll registers as well as accounts of herring imports in the German North Sea and Baltic cities. Subsequently, a number of price series for various parts of northern Europe provide indications as to the long-term development of herring prices. This is followed up by an analysis of the consumption patterns for salted herring, and an evaluation of the influence of mercantilist policies. The area under review and most of the towns mentioned in this chapter feature on the map in figure 6.1.
Markets
The Dutch herring production and exports all over Europe in the 17th century provide an indication of the scope of the European herring trade. By the time the salted herring came ashore, the content had usually shrunk. In order to control the quality of the landed product and make optimal use of the empty space in the barrels, the entire cargo would be repackaged. Therefore, the barrels containing the finished product ready for export contained 12 barrels per last against the 14 barrels per last landed by the fishing vessel. Packed in barrels, the finished product could be easily transported over large distances, and the cured salted herring could last for a long time. As the prime product, all the salted herring from the North Sea area was processed and barrelled so it was easy to transport. But where did all the salted herring go in the 17th and 18th centuries?
Dutch historian Kranenburg calculated that in the heyday of the Dutch herring trade during the first half of the 17th century approx. 80% of all salted herring was exported to other countries, and only 20% was consumed in the Dutch Republic.
1 - Introduction
- Bo Poulsen, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Dutch Herring
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Motivation
Today, climate change is considered a prime concern when it comes to the future management of the World's fisheries resources. In the 2005 review of global fisheries resources from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO) climate variability and its potential impact on fisheries received special attention. In modern fisheries, the climate is seen as a highly important factor influencing the overall fluctuations of many fish stocks. One of the problems facing fisheries managers is the task of distinguishing between the pressure caused by fishing and climatic variability, when analysing changes in modern fish stocks. Moreover, with the pressing issue of possible global warming, knowledge of the past effects of climate change may provide information for the management of future fish stocks. As worded in another recent publication from FAO; ‘The dilemma is how to cope with the uncertainty of future climate changes. Lessons from the past seem a good place to start’. Even if managers cannot simply project past trajectories into the future, lessons from the past still seem one way of informing us about the future of ecosystems.
This book presents an investigation of how natural variability in the North Atlantic area, and more specifically in the North Sea, may have affected the productivity of North Sea herring stocks and the recruitment of fish egs and larvae into these. An assessment of this factor is made possible through indepth studies of the temporal and spatial variations in North Sea herring fluctuations from the pre-statistical era, when marine science was still in its embryonic stages.
We also need to look to the past to increase our understanding of society's interaction with the environment. In current debates on environmental is-sues, the starting point or baseline for scientifically-based arguments is often the time when a specific method or instrumental signal was first recorded. In the area of fisheries, the baseline for modern research is often no more than a generation, thus leaving the more distant past shrouded in darkness. This book proposes that marine environmental history is a means of shifting the baseline further back in time, shedding light onto past marine ecosystems in order to gain a better perspective on present ecosystems.
Contents
- Vincent Lagendijk, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Electrifying Europe
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5 - Securing European Cooperation, 1951-2001
- Vincent Lagendijk, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Electrifying Europe
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- 03 March 2009, pp 157-212
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Summary
In 1963 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, 1949) commissioned a temporary working group of experts to study electricity production and distribution of electricity in wartime situations. The working group consisted of internationally distinguished electricity experts, including former TECAID-ers R. Marin (Italy) and G. Bardon (France), as well as founding members of the UCPTE W. Fleischer (FRG) and chairman J.C, van Staveren (Netherlands). After meeting five times between 1963 and 1964, the group drew two conclusions. First, they insisted they should rely upon existing forms of collaboration, and did not regard a “supranational coordinating body” as useful. Second, the group's final report concluded that there was one matter “of fundamental importance for the use of electrical power in wartime: interconnections”. Overall, it advised that the number of interconnections should increase, both at high and low voltages.
Existing cooperation and networks thus not only served economic interests and the pursuit of a “happy and peaceful future”, they were also meant to face the threat of a new conflict during the Cold War. This gave a powerful strategic and ideological twist to the potential advantages of an international interconnected network. Historian Michael Hogan has claimed that integration “was the interlocking concept in the American plan for Western Europe, the key to a large single market, a workable balance of power among the Western states, and a favorable correlation of forces on the Continent”. Although the aim of security and political stability gained prominence in the 1950s, the ERP had already endeavored in that direction. These ideals fitted with another part of U.S. strategy – that of containment– which sought to halt the spread of oppressive communist regimes. Several examples show how this was already the case with the ERP. Western European economic strength was, according to U.S. policymakers, intertwined with defensive strength and the construction and expansion of electricity networks was seen as an integral part of that strength. But internal development in Western European was not all that mattered. NATO strategy also aimed to deny electrical equipment to the Eastern block, as well as to prevent close relations between East and West in the field of electricity.
6 - Roads to Europe – The E-road Network, 1950-2007
- Frank Schipper, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Driving Europe
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 19 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 187-218
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Summary
Get your kicks on the e3
“The map shows yet another pan-European face, namely the formation of European unity through a common road network.”
Gerhard Schulz-Wittuhn (1948)Under the title “Get your kicks on the E3” the Dutch journalist Tijs van den Boomen wrote a series of articles for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad between 12 June and 28 August 1999. The series concerned the fate of the E3, one of the former arteries of the so-called E-road network. The E3 formed part of an extensive network of European main international traffic arteries spanning the continent since 1950. The Inland Transport Committee of the ECE sponsored the network. The route of the E3 was renumbered in 1975, but as one of the former large transversals of the network Boomen nevertheless wanted to trace the impact it still had today on the places it used to connect.
Boomen reconstructed the story of the E3 by traveling from Vaalimaa on the Finnish-Russian border to Lisbon. Boomen found the old E3 was still very much alive. He stumbled upon the Swedish roadside café E3 Baren, the transport firm E3 Spedition & Transport in Padborg, Denmark, the E-DRY discotheque in the Ruhr area near the German-Dutch border, and the E3 beach at a sand quarry in the Dutch village Eersel. The former artery also gave its name to the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen, a single day semi-classic bicycle race in Flanders, which had its first official edition in 1958 and is organized yearly up to today.
The E3 also appeared in the stories of passers-by the journalist met on his quest. A former migrant worker effortlessly summed up the passage points along the E3 stretch that used to bring him from Portugal to his work at the Renault factories in Paris. A man traveling with his family to Morocco had been undertaking the journey regularly ever since 1966 when he emigrated to the Netherlands to work in a chicken slaughterhouse in the Dutch town Barneveld. In Belgium Boomen found Rogier Claerhout, who had worked in maintaining the Belgian part of the E3 after it was finalized in the early 1970s. The Belgian road worker happily presented the Dutch journalist with an E3 memorial book and a bright orange overall with the E3 sign sawn on it.
Frontmatter
- Frank Schipper, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Driving Europe
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- 03 March 2009, pp 1-4
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5 - Setting the stage – The Parade of Organizations, 1942-1953
- Frank Schipper, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Driving Europe
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- 03 March 2009, pp 159-186
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Summary
The reconstruction of a continent
“It is not always easy to find a way through the jungle of institutions, concealed under their confusing and sometimes indistinguishable acronyms, or to know exactly what are the tasks performed by each.”
David Luard (1977)If there is one development that makes the period after the Second World War different from prior epochs, it would certainly be the enormous increase in wealth during the 1947-1973 period in many European countries. Combined with an increase in leisure time this provided one of the necessary conditions for an upsurge in tourism. Part of this tourism moved by bus, but the booming economy of the Trente Glorieuses especially turned the car into a mass commodity in several countries. Car ownership changed from a privilege into a normality during this period, and the annual family holiday by car became the epitome of a modern, wealthy, twentieth century European. The increase in wealth also entailed an increase in trade and, consequently, freight traffic on the road increased many-fold in the post-war period. The unbridled growth of road transport vis-à-vis its competitors created huge financial problems for the railways from the mid-1950s onwards.
None of this was obvious in 1945. There seemed few reasons for optimism in the direct aftermath of the war. Rising geopolitical antagonism among the former Allies did certainly not give cause to it. The belligerents had been defeated, but the war had left deep psychological and physical scars through the loss of human life and the devastation of buildings and infrastructure. The latter was particularly problematic as demand for transport was enormous. Large numbers of displaced people erred around the continent, wanting to return to the places they once called home. Food and other goods had to be transported, but, on top of the inadequate infrastructure, transport equipment was short in supply.
The first priority was to reconstruct what had been destroyed. In the post-war situation any transport was most welcome due to scarcities, and road transport did not fail to play its part in restoring the European transport system to normality, not in the least place due to the level of destruction in the railroad sector.
4 - (Re)Constructing Regions, 1934-51
- Vincent Lagendijk, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Electrifying Europe
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- 03 March 2009, pp 107-156
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In April, 1949, a group of European engineers was welcomed by their American hosts, and presented to the press at a location not far from the White House in Washington D.C. The conference they attended there kicked off a five-week tour of power plants and control centers around the United States. The visitors from Europe, most of them system operators in their respective countries, flew across the Atlantic to see firsthand the American state-of-the-art in the electricity industry. This Technical Assistance (TECAID) Mission was an integral element of the electricity programs set up within the framework of the European Recovery Program (ERP), also known as the Marshall Plan. The overall intention of the ERP with regard to electricity was to expand generation capacity, by building national and international power plants on the one hand, and making better use of new and existing capacity by creating European power pools on the other. These power pools, should be brought about by building both physical and institutional interconnections between countries.
To Paul G. Hoffman, administrator of the ERP, the mission was about more than increasing the amount of electricity available in Europe. In his address to the European engineers, Hoffman named two other important aspects of the TECAID Mission, which also applied to the ERP general. First, increasing the availability of electricity should help increase productivity in industry. Hoffman linked productivity to welfare, stating that it was “impossible for any people to enjoy a better standard of living unless within the confines of that country the people produce more”. At the same time, expanding generation capacity was directly related to economic recovery. The ERP's most prominent advisor on electric power, Walker Cisler, considered electricity to be “one of the greatest resources for the revival of Western Europe”.
The adjective “Western” reflected the absence of Central and Eastern European countries in the ERP. What is less obvious in Cisler's mention of “Western Europe” is that, Scandinavian engineers also did not come to Washington as part of the TECAID mission. In this, the meeting was a harbinger of how Europe would eventually be organized electrically.
2 - Setting the Stage – The Dawn of the Spirit of Geneva, 1898-1921
- Frank Schipper, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Driving Europe
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- 19 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 45-82
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Summary
All roads lead to Paris
“the space of a continent to be traversed, hundreds and hundreds of miles of road, varying in grade, in character, in scenery (…). The long winding road stretches out before you, reaching from the capital of one great country to the centre of another.”
Charles Jarrott (1906)The cup had the shape of a driving wheel, resting on the heads of two camels. Its golden splendor was put on top of a marble base with a map of the route from Peking to Paris adorned with laurel and oak leaves. Prince Scipione Borghese received the allegoric work of art representing his race of countless hardships amidst the thousands of spectators assembled in the rainy Jardins des Tuileries on 10 August 1907. Earlier that day he had paraded through the centre of Paris in his Itala automobile, preceded by a thirty-seat charabanc decorated with Italian and French flags containing a full brass band playing the Triumphal March of Verdi's Aida.
The Peking to Paris race celebrated the global reach of automobilism, just like the 1908 New York to Paris race that sought to emulate it. The finish of both these extravagant events in Paris was not a coincidence. The French capital was the central stage for the automobile in its early years. The City of Light became one of the first automobilized metropoles and turned into the prime hub for automobile innovation and production around the turn of the century. The first Salon d’Automobile took place on 15 June 1898 in the Tuileries and made the city a showcase for automobility. Paris’ pioneering role in the development of the automobile was supported by the fact that Parisians widely and enduringly embraced the automobile until the 1970s Thus the city came to play an important role in embedding the automobile in early twentieth century France and Europe.
The city highlights several relevant aspects for the development of international motorized road traffic in Europe. First, Paris served as the start for four international automobile races, the so-called Courses des Capitales between Paris and other major European cities (1898-1903). The well-publicized events symbolized fraternal bonds between major European countries. Second, France in general and Paris in particular became a prime destination for European motorists.
Sources and Bibliography
- Vincent Lagendijk, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Electrifying Europe
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- 03 March 2009, pp 223-244
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3 - Hypotheses and Questions
- Bo Poulsen, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Dutch Herring
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 15 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 36-39
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Summary
This study attempts to present analyses covering all three corners of Worster's triangle. This is achieved by applying multiple perspectives on the interaction between North Sea herring populations and the human fisheries systems and societal factors impacting the fisheries.
The individual analyses in chapters 4-11 each address at least two corners of the triangle. The synthesising chapter 11, however, is intended to present a system of herring exploitation in the North Sea, approx. 1600-1850 as well as analyses spanning all three ‘corners’.
The next step is to apply the above theories on interaction between man and nature to the empirical past of the North Sea ecosystem and North Sea history as observed in the exploitation of herring, between approx. 1600- 1850. In order to construct relevant sets of observations, a number of hypotheses must be defined and tested. The main hypotheses examined in this study are the following, listed here according to their primary perspective on each particular issue:
Methodological:
• A uniform set of historical data will allow for the reconstruction of lengthy time series with regards to fishing effort and catch rates.
• Historical research will allow for reconstruction of the spatial dimensions of the North Sea herring exploration pattern.
• The above two hypotheses allow us to differentiate between natural and human impacts on a former ecosystem.
• Theories from modern marine ecology can provide new insights into the history of the North Sea herring fisheries
Mainly ecological:
• The total extraction of North Sea herring can be measured over a period of several centuries
• Did fisheries have a significant impact on the abundance of North Sea herring, or not?
• How did the population of North Sea herring fluctuate during the defined time period?
• How did the stock of North Sea herring migrate, both seasonally and over decades?
Mainly anthropogenic:
• What was the total production of salted herring in the North Sea area?
• Who were the main producers of herring during this period?
• How did the main producers differ in terms of their mode of production?
• Which factors characterised the development of European herring consumption?
• How was the European salted herring market integrated?
• How did the organisation of Dutch herring fisheries influence fishing strategy
• How can the cooperative behaviour of the Dutch fishers be addressed with modern theories on information sharing systems?
1 - Introduction: In search of European Roots
- Vincent Lagendijk, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Book:
- Electrifying Europe
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- 20 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 15-38
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Summary
Gales blazed across the Alpine region as usual during autumn. In the early morning of September 28, 2003 a severe storm forced a tree to sway near the Italian-Swiss border. Unfortunately, the branches tripped a power line. The load of the disturbed line is automatically divided among other cables. These transmission lines were already utilized close to their full capacity. To relieve them from excessive load, the Italian transmission network operator (TSO) decided to cut down electricity imports by 300 MW. Twenty-four minutes later another tree hit a high voltage line. This second incident overloaded remaining transmission lines between Italy and Switzerland. In order to contain the problem, Italy was isolated from the European grid of the Union for Coordination of Transportation of Electricity (UCTE) – encompassing the cooperation between 23 European TSOs.
This separation from the UCTE network caused a frequency instability in Italy, which eventually led to the collapse of the domestic system.1 Less than two minutes after Italy's isolation from the European interconnected network the entire Italian peninsula was deprived of electrical power. The largest blackout in Italian history was a fact. All over the country trains came to a halt and traffic lights went off. In Rome, where the annual all-night festival Notte Bianca was taking place, plunged into darkness. The Roman subway system came to halt, trapping thousands of passengers. The Vatican put backup generators into action, enabling the pope to proclaim new cardinals on early Sunday morning. An ongoing liver transplant had to be aborted and postponed in a Trieste hospital. Only after half a day the whole of Italy was once again supplied. The blackout not only disrupted Italian society, but also led to the death of at least four people.
The UCTE immediately appointed a committee to evaluate the blackout. Not awaiting the report, various actors began to search for the roots of the blackout, and initially pointed fingers at each other across the Alps. An Italian newspaper reported how Swiss and French authorities blamed Italy for not handling the crisis properly. In response, the Italian TSO claimed that their inability to restore control over the system was not the root of the blackout.
8 - Reconstructing Stock Fluctuations of North Sea Herring, 1604-1850
- Bo Poulsen, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Dutch Herring
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- 15 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 130-159
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Summary
Introduction
This chapter presents a reconstruction of the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of the Dutch herring fishery, approx. 1600-1850. This is the longest time series of CPUE ever compiled.
The CPUE time series is constructed by using historical data of a very homogenous nature from this entire period. This enables the standardization of all main units of catch and effort. The CPUE is analysed at three different levels: 1) catch per boat per year, 2) catch per boat per day at sea for each fishing trip and 3) catch per boat per day at sea over the entire season. This is supported by analyses of the average length of individual fishing trips as well as the average length of the entire season. The standardized CPUE in combination with the length of the examined period makes the time series suitable to test current marine biology theories on the natural variations of North Sea herring against the background of a historical fishery.
From a historical point of view, this chapter proposes that historical catch rates certainly played an important part in the 250-year rise and fall of the Dutch herring fishery in the mid 18th century, and especially the first half of the 19th century. Catch rates per day at sea for individual vessels during the whole of each fishing season also allow for an assessment of the fishing strategy for each season. The annual catch per boat was by and large stable, while the average length of individual fishing trips varied with the success rate of the fishery. The better the catches were, the shorter was the trip.
The College van de Grote Visserij
The privileged towns forming the College van de Grote Visserij upheld a monopoly on the landing of salted herring in the Netherlands until the 1850s, and these 250 years have left a large amount of documents in Dutch archives enabling a historical reconstruction. The technological and institutional factors that affected the fishery can be standardised, as the College regulated the size and use of fishing gear, driftnets, and the length of the season. Regulations are common features in the management of modern fisheries resources. The main purpose of the College van de Grote Visserij was to uphold the quality of the top brand of salted herring in Europe.
Acknowledgements
- Bo Poulsen, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Dutch Herring
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Bibliography
- Bo Poulsen, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
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- 03 March 2009, pp 250-264
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3 - Planning a European Network, 1927-34
- Vincent Lagendijk, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Electrifying Europe
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- 20 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 69-106
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Summary
In 1932 the journal L’Européen featured a front-page article by Marcel Ulrich. Ulrich was laureate of the French Ecole de Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines de Paris. At the time he also was president of UNIPEDE. He earlier served as president with CIGRE. Ulrich thus was distinguished French engineer but also a wellknown figure within the international electro-technical community. His article certainly appealed to the latter community, as Ulrich described on-going discussions about a European electricity network. Engineers proposed such schemes starting in 1929, which received supported from the electro-technical community. About at the same time, the International Labor Organization and LoN took similar plans into consideration. Between 1930 and 1937, these Geneva organizations studied its feasibility. To engineers, a European interconnected network enabled a better economic mix by linking thermal and hydroelectric power plants.
As the idea of a European network was essentially a technological project, Ulrich's article seemed out of place in L’Européen. This journal provided a forum for different visions on European values and the future of Europe. With other journals like L’Europe, L’Europe nouvelle, Paneuropa, l’Européen was an outgrowth of the idea of European unity, which gained significant momentum and became a movement in the 1920s. To Europeanists – a loosely grouped elitist alliance of people promoting and believing in European unification – “Europe” seemed a way to overcome economic nationalism and political disagreement, and to restore Europe's pre-war global prestige. Ideas for unifying Europe often included technological projects as a unifying force. The European movement showed fascination with electricity, as well as with rational organization and technological solutions. It is therefore not surprising that Europeanists saw a European electricity network as a tool for forging European unity. Many Europeanists believed that such a network could increase material and social progress in Europe. Some even went further: they believed that interconnecting Europe's countries also encompassed a dimension that I would label an ideological mix. In their eyes, the immediate construction of a European high-voltage network could relieve unemployment, spark economic growth, modernize Central and Eastern European economies, and at the same time create a spiritual and unifying European bond.
7 - Driving Europe – The Operation of Europe’s Roads, 1949-1960
- Frank Schipper, Dave Lyddon, Kurt Vandaele
- Edited by Eric Venbrux
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- Driving Europe
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 19 January 2021
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- 03 March 2009, pp 219-258
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Summary
Danish butter for France
“Ever-flowing [trade]? Yes, until it reaches national frontiers. There, food and goods and those who carry them must stand waiting, held idle by the sluggish machinery of frontier bureaucracy. (…) Such is the cost when a continent knows no unity.”
Marshall Plan movie 1…2…3…, episode 4 (1952-1953)Loudly blowing its horn the truck proceeded towards the French border. In a suburb of Copenhagen the Danish trucker had picked up his fellow driver. Together they went full speed ahead across the fields. In the distance a building loomed ahead on the side of the road. Austere border officials summoned the approaching vehicle to stop. They closely examined the content of each and every barrel of butter in the truck's cargo. Precious time was lost, but as soon as they entered France the truck drivers forgot all of that. During one of their stops at a roadside café, they even succumbed to a great French tradition and hesitantly sipped some wine.
The Marshall Plan film from which these scenes are taken cleverly selected Strasbourg as the final destination for the journey of the Danish truckers. There the Council of Europe engaged in lofty discussions on European cooperation to guarantee fraternity and peace in Europe. In their documentary the filmmakers therefore interspersed a second story line of a simultaneous interpreter working at the Council of Europe. The depiction of the lives of a Dutch barge shipper and his wife traveling down the Rhine from Strasbourg completed the film.2 The choice of riverine transport on the Rhine was certainly not coincidental either. Protected by the liberal inland navigation regime on the Rhine dating back to the Congress of Vienna (1815), the Dutch captain only needed to have his cargo of drainage pipes checked at Strasbourg, his port of departure There customs officials sealed his cargo, which would further remain undisturbed at other ports along the Rhine, customs officials merely glancing at his paperwork and briefly checking if the seals remained intact.
The case of the barge shipper formed a shrill contrast with that of the truck drivers – both in the movie and in reality. The professional road transport sector publicly voiced its discontent over the restrictions imposed on road traffic that did not apply for inland navigation or railroad traffic.