Petitions in Social History

Looks at petitions over the last five centuries to reconstruct the lives and opinions of 'humble' petitioners.

Lex Heerma van Voss (Edited by)

9780521013222, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 January 2002

242 pages, 8 b/w illus. 5 tables
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.7 cm, 0.367 kg

This book looks at petitions over the last five centuries to reconstruct the lives and opinions of 'humble' petitioners. Since Pharaonic times, governments have allowed their subjects to voice opinions in the form of petitions, which have demanded a favour or the redressment of an injustice. To be effective, a petition had to mention the request, usually a motivation and always the name or names of the petitioners. As a result, grievances of ordinary people which were not written down anywhere else are now stored safely in the archives of the authorities to which the petitions were addressed. The petitions considered in this book, which come from all over the globe, offer rich and valuable sources for social historians.

Introduction Lex Heerma van Voss
1. Voices from the 'silent masses': humble petitions and social conflicts in early modern Central Europe Andreas Würgler
2. Supplications between politics and justice: the northern and central Italian states in the early modern age Cecilia Nubola
3. The power of petitions: women and the New Hampshire provincial government, 1695–1770 Marcia Schmidt Blaine
4. Officially solicited petitions: the Cahiers de Doléances as a historical source Gilbert Shapiro and John Markoff
5. Revolt, testimony, petition: artisanal protests in colonial Andhra Potukuchi Swarnalatha
6. Deference and defiance: the changing nature of petitioning in British naval dockyards Ken Lunn and Ann Day
7. Petitions and the social context of political mobilization in the revolution of 1848/49: a microhistorical actor-centered network analysis Carola Lipp and Lothar Krempel
8. The image of Jews in Byelorussia: petitions as a source for popular consciousness in the early twentieth century Aleg G. Bukhovets
9. 'Begging the sages of the party-state': citizenship and government in transition in nationalist China, 1927–37 Rebecca Nedostup and Liang Hong-Ming
10. Private matters: family and race and the post-World-War-II translation of 'American' Nancy K. Ota.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], General & world history [HBG]