For the ‘Rotterdam Project’, a large amount of historical data on patrons of Rotterdam’s main theatres during the ‘long’ 19th century (1773–1914)was collected, digitally registered and statistically analysed. The data was gathered from the theatre archives of the city of Rotterdam and included data on such specifics as ticket sales, repertoire and featured performers. The database holds prosopography information on over 16,000 patrons and almost 15,000registered ticket sales to these patrons. This dataset (https:// doi.org/doi:10.21943/auas.7381127) can be used to make comparisons to the datasets of similarly sized cities in other countries during the same period and for broader re- search on 19th-century cultural history. So far, the data has been mainly applied to empirically test the master narrative of theatre historiography on the social composi- tion of theatre audiences. The analyses based on the data show that this narrative must, for the most part, be rejected.
Many, many comparisons have been drawn in recent years between the current rise of (right-wing) populism and the financial crisis of 2008 that shook and continues to shake Europe to its core, and the tumultuous and horrifying events of the 1930s, which in the end resulted in the Second World War. A number of recent studies which (partially) focus on this decade carry ominous titles like To Hell and Back, The Age of Catastrophe and The Triumph of the Dark. Referred to by some historians as the second Thirty Years’ War, the period from the First World War to the end of the Second still continues to draw much academic and indeed public attention. In many cases, Germany deservedly plays a central role in the analysis, either in the form of the Kaiserreich or the ill-fated Weimar Republic and, of course, Nazi Germany. The five books under review here discuss European history between 1914 and 1950 in general, and that of Germany in particular, in this period. What do these books tell us about Europe’s and Germany’s path in the first half of the twentieth century, and what new insights do they provide? https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691418777981 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martijn-lak-71793013/
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This article illustrates the ‘visual turn’ approach to sports history in an analysisof traditionally under-researched material from the late nineteenth century. Focusing on football (‘soccer’) action photography, we argue that interpreting this visual material contributes significantly to the exploration and interpretation of the broader social and cultural context within which sports were practised andthe visual material was produced. Regarding the latter, the photographer’s challenge was to capture the movement inherent in the practice of sports generally and of football specifically. Our analysis explains the time at which these pictures first appear as a consequence of developing possibilities and skills in ongoing photographic experimentation. This is illustrated by a case study of a football action photograph from the archives of the Noorthey Institute for boys in Voorschoten, dating from 1895-1897. There, conducting sports was seen as a way of enhancing the students’ physical and mental strengths, including improved study performance. It took place in an atmosphere of camaraderie among teachers and students, the latter acting as supervisors and teammates at the same time. Beyond the texts, the photographs visualize what this educational approach entailed in actual practice
