More than 7,000 assaults were reported to the magistrates of Portsmouth, England, between 1700 and 1781. Time-series analyses were run to see (1) what effects, if any, war had on levels of aggression and (2) whether overall levels of aggression decreased over time. Aggression was measured in two ways: (1) the extent to which assailants ganged up on adversaries and (2) levels of violence in individual confrontations (whether a weapon was used, and if so, what type; whether assailants refrained from using a weapon; and whether they stopped short of physical violence and instead merely insulted or threatened their enemies). Neither measure showed a significant variation over time. The participation of women in brawls decreased, but the aggressiveness of those who continued to brawl actually increased. Complaints about insults and threats declined, while complaints of a more serious nature showed a modest increase, reflecting, among other things, the emergence of new definitions of actionable behavior.

The domestic politics of American military spending during the Cold War confronts scholars with an important but often overlooked puzzle: the two major parties appear to have switched positions on the issue. During the early Cold War era, Democrats were generally supportive of increased military spending, while Republicans were critical. After the mid-1960s, Democrats increasingly tended to oppose larger military budgets, while Republicans more often favored them. This article presents evidence about the process through which this change took place. It identifies several developments in the domestic and international environments that may have contributed to this party switch and evaluates preliminary evidence about each of them.

The western region of the United States has exhibited racial and ethnic diversity that rivals that found in any other part of the country. Yet the socioeconomic differences among western racial and ethnic groups have been studied much less intensively than corresponding differences in other regions of the United States. In this article we use data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from 1940 through 2000 to describe the recent history of occupational inequality in the West. We find evidence of a persistent and significant occupational disadvantage for African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans. In contrast, the two Asian groups included in our analysis, Chinese and Japanese, frequently enjoyed an actual occupational advantage relative not only to other racial and ethnic minority groups but also to the majority native-born white population. Controlling for group differences in educational attainment explains much of the racial and ethnic variation in occupational inequality, but further analysis shows that it is inaccurate to assume that all groups enjoy the same occupational benefits from additional schooling. As a result, controlling for education without considering such differential occupational returns to schooling can yield a misleading picture of occupational inequality. Finally, we interpret these findings in relation to different theoretical perspectives on racial and ethnic inequality in the United States.

Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century industrialization provoked quantitative and qualitative changes in traditional European migratory patterns. Most of the economic and social history literature concerning the study of European internal migration during the industrializing period has emphasized permanent migration. This article shows, however, that temporary internal migration was common not only in preindustrial societies but in industrializing ones too. The article also examines the causes and the consequences of the persistence of temporary internal migrations in Spain from the mid-nineteenth century to the period leading up to the outbreak of the Spanish civil war (1936–39). Aggregate data sources are used in depth for this purpose. The information derived from aggregate sources is supplemented by reference to secondary sources, mainly comprising local and regional studies.

This article uses the national sample of the 1901 census of Canada to compare the earnings of live-in domestic servants with the earnings of women in other occupations and to examine the ethnoreligious backgrounds of domestic servants. The hypothesis that domestic service offered relative material advantages, when room and board are taken into account, is rejected. The hypothesis that female domestic servants came from a narrow range of specific ethnoreligious backgrounds is also rejected. The changing backgrounds and expectations of female domestic servants in the early twentieth century exacerbated class tensions in the service sector, helping ensure that domestic service remained an occupation of short duration and high turnover. The conclusion is that domestic service did not simply decline; rather, a work process was transformed. Demographic changes combined with changes in family and individual strategies to limit the supply of labor. When efforts to increase labor supply failed, bourgeois employers attempted to replace labor with new household technology; the wage-paid occupation of the domestic servant declined and was replaced by that of the unpaid housewife.