Now capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, and playing a leading role in Europe and the wider world, Berlin has risen from insignificant origins in two small medieval trading centres on swampy soil at the confluence of two rivers, the Spree and the Havel, in the Brandenburg marches (or Mark) in the centre of Europe. This chapter introduces the notion of a key moment, and outlines the three elements guiding the book: people, or changing demographic profiles; place, or the ways in which the size, shape, and principal functions of the city changed over time; and identity, or the ways in which Berliners and others imagined the city and constructed an ever-changing present in light of selected aspects of the past and contested aspirations for the future.

Chapter 5 addresses a major demographic puzzle concerning thousands of New York slaves who seem to have gone missing in the transition from slavery to freedom, and the chapter questions how and if slaves were sold South. The keys to solving this puzzle include estimates of common death rates, census undercounting, changing gender ratios in the New York black population, and, most importantly, a proper interpretation of the 1799 emancipation law and its effects on how the children of slaves were counted in the census. Given an extensive analysis of census data, with various demographic techniques for understanding how populations change over time, I conclude that a large number of New York slaves (between 1,000 and 5,000) were sold South, but not likely as many as some previous historians have suggested. A disproportionate number of these sold slaves came from Long Island and Manhattan.

Elephants are a textbook example of slow-breeding megafauna, with extended periods of maternal investment and a long reproductive lifespan among both sexes. The unique reproductive physiology of females gives rise to the uniquely proboscidean phenomenon of “musth” among males, a rut-like breeding state. This chapter examines how female reproductive constraints and life histories impose constraints on males, who in turn must trade off the need to forage with the need to breed. These dueling motivational states give rise to tactics that vary at different life history stages. Tusks, another iconic feature of elephants, may be thought to offer competitive advantages, but the case is not so clear when one considers their liabilities. The chapter concludes by contrasting the demographic pressures on elephants due to habitat loss, conflict, and hunting, and the possible hidden costs that might influence the viability of elephant populations.

This chapter demonstrates the crucial role of geographic proximity in shaping agrarian and herding relations in the history of late Ottoman Kurdistan, including regional political economy, socioeconomic structures, and intercommunal relations. It argues that the region is marked by three distinct ecological zones, which differ from each other in terms of elevation, climate, vegetation, and both human and animal habitation. The chapter then shows the encroachment of the Ottoman state through the arrival of Tanzimat reforms and the multifaceted consequences this had in the region. Next, it illustrates a demographic portrait of the region, depicting how human beings brought different ecosystems into conversation with one another. It argues that pastoralism sustained the conversation between geographic zones into the nineteenth century, creating linkages and slippages between mountains, pastures, and plains, and defining the interaction between the three zones until these links began to weaken in the face of a series of environmental crises. The chapter concludes with a glimpse into five villages from different parts of the region.

For decades, researchers have tried to identify ecological and biological correlates of longevity, often using life expectancy and maximum lifespan as the gold standards. The recent increase in demographic data collected in non-model species has also led researchers to develop alternative metrics of longevity, especially in comparative analyses (e.g. 90% longevity). As a result, studies focused on longevity rely on heterogeneous statistical methodologies and use a variety of longevity metrics that are not always clearly defined. This lack of clarity has led to confusion in the interpretation of results and makes it difficult to compare results across studies. This chapter discusses the statistical interpretation of each metric and highlights potential biases associated with the missus of longevity metrics; conducts a systematic review of the various longevity metrics used across the scientific literature and analyses the content of scientific articles on longevity using topic modelling methodology; and illustrates, using two examples, the importance of selecting the appropriate metric based on the research question. Based on these insights, it provides a list of recommendations aimed at helping researchers to think carefully about the choice of metrics when studying longevity.

Humans live longer today than ever before. The remarkable rise in longevity occurred in a brief period of human history, roughly since the eighteenth century, and was driven by persistent efforts against epidemics, famines, health insecurity and chronic diseases. This chapter covers essential concepts regarding this extraordinary achievement for the human race, such as the demographic transition model, distinguishable from the earlier Neolithic demographic transition, which both led in their unique way to substantial alterations in the cause and age distribution of deaths. To account for the shift in disease patterns over time, the concept of epidemiological transition was originally proposed by Abdel Omran in the early 1970s and later evolved into broader conceptual frameworks, including the health transition. The chapter concludes by briefly addressing whether increased human longevity is matched by improved health and its future sustainability.

This chapter analyzes the major trends in late Ottoman Gaza’s economy, society, and geostrategic importance. It tackles the misconception that during this period Gaza was a city in “decline.” It discusses a wide range of topics such as the impact of early globalization and the change in the hajj pilgrimage route on the status of Gaza as a caravan city; the impact of the barley boom in the Northern Negev between 1890 and 1910 as a result of the growing demand of Britain’s beer industry on Gaza’s economy; the city’s lack of a proper port infrastructure and its implications; the Ottoman government state-building measures and division of the region’s administrative borders, the establishment of Beersheba to reduce Gaza’s influence on the Bedouins of the Negev, and the governmental development plans envisioned for the Gaza region; the extensive relationships between Gaza and Egypt, including the effects of the occupation of Egypt by Britain in 1882 and the creation of the administrate dividing line between Egypt and Palestine in 1906 on Gaza’s geostrategic importance. Finally, it explores whether the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 constituted a turning point in Gaza’s importance in the eyes of the central government and how it affected the city’s development.

In this chapter we explore the textual and material evidence for the transformation of the city of Antioch in northern Syria from the seventh through ninth centuries. Through observations of the environmental shocks, including the Justinianic Plague, which first arrived in AD 542, as well as the effects of a series of major earthquakes, we assess demographic changes that likely accompanied these events. Following this, we explore some possible reconstruction of the population of Antioch and its hinterland. In the early medieval period, a reassessment of the material evidence, read together with descriptions from medieval texts, demonstrates that a level economic and social activity, probably significantly exceeding previous estimates, persisted through the ‘Dark Ages’ of the seventh-ninth centuries.

Chapter 2 focuses on establishing and motivating the empirical puzzle that motivates this study. I present descriptive data to document that reclassification is indeed taking place, and to lay to rest simple explanations that might account for this change. I then shift to motivate the puzzle theoretically. I situate these patterns against the well-established expectations of anthropological and sociological literatures, which emphasize how discrimination and stigmatization have long incentivized whitening, or at least lightening. Zooming out further, I situate these patterns historically, arguing that the recent reclassification reversal should be understood as simply the latest development in the evolution of racial subjectivity and state policy that has spanned three centuries in Brazil.

Political factions at Carthage cannot be identified beyond a simple polarity: supporters and opponents of Hannibal’s family, ‘Barcids’ and ‘anti-Barcids’. At Rome, the richer naming system has encouraged prosopographic studies, conjectures about political alliances based on kinship, marriage ties, and shared local origins. But more than temporary existence of such ‘groups’ is doubtful. It is also disputed whether Republican Rome was any sort of democracy: Polybius controversially claimed that tribunes of the plebs were there to do the people’s will. In the second Punic war, where we rely on Livy, elections do not look very democratic, but there is a special and temporary reason for this: demography. Casualties in the 218−216 disasters produced a top-heavy senate for years to come. The trials of the Scipios (180s) do not support the idea of groups but rather exemplify the ruling class’s concern to prevent ambitious individuals from upsetting a competitive equilibrium.

As seemingly cognate sub-genres of history, the history of sexuality and women’s history have a complicated relationship. Both tell 1970s origins stories from global north liberation movements, despite the scholarly scrutiny of sexuality and women in earlier historical periods. Core journals and publications reveal these sub-fields’ distinctive, sometimes incommensurate development trajectories. Perhaps due to their recent advent, presentism is clear in both, with the corollary of a marked post-1800 skew of most research and publications. Women’s history tracks women, in all their subdivisions, of necessity with focus upon sexualities in many registers, while seeking address of race, indigeneity, ethnicity, and international and global foci. Alternatively, the history of sexuality prioritizes sexual minorities and erotic alterities, welcoming studies of identities, expression, and representation. Key themes are transgressive resistance against repression and heteronormativity, entailing special concentration on same-sex history. Women figure within these themes, while innovative feminists are influential historians of sexuality. Nonetheless, women’s history and feminist analysis of sexualities have no default standing for the history of sexuality. In short, intellectual, methodological, and political properties prove less reciprocal than might be presumed. These exciting areas of history should evolve, to illuminate crucial topics for both, for instance reproduction. As both pursue aims to incorporate all historical periods and regions, their interconnections may become stronger.

Population and Irish confessional demographics feature heavily in Swift’s political pamphlets. His writing on these topics helped shape popular perceptions of Ireland in the eighteenth century, a period that witnessed the emergence of an Irish diaspora across the British Atlantic world. This chapter considers the role that confessional demography played in Swift’s Irish political writings and the later influence of those writings on the formation of early anti-Irish nativism in colonial America. This first section looks at the role of demographic anxieties in A Modest Proposal. The second section addresses Swift’s concerns about religious dissent in Ireland. The third and final section explores the influence of Swift’s writings in colonial America.