The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
A comparison of income inequality in the Roman and Chinese Han empires
8th April, 2025
Michele Bolla, Guido Alfani and Walter Scheidel have a new Open Access article published in Nature Communications. They introduce a new methodology to measure income inequality at the provincial level in ancient economies. They find that the Han Empire and the Roman Empire differed substantially in the relationship between centre and periphery, and the treatment of local elites. They also argue that higher inequality increased the potential for political instability and the collapse of empires.
New horizons: urban history and the digital frontier
11th February, 2025
In the lead-up to this year's Urban History Group Conference, Campop's Emily Chung reflects on the state of urban history and the implications of digital developments for the field.
30th January, 2025
Keith Sugden and Amy Erickson have a new article published in Textile History.
Raw cotton consumption increased fourteen-fold over the thirty-three years following the introduction of Samuel Crompton's spinning mule in 1780. During this period all cotton weaving was undertaken on the handloom. It is estimated that between 130,000 and 180,000 weavers were employed in England to turn the cotton into cloth. Analysis of baptism registers shows that of these, only 69,000 were adult males. The analysis infers that the remainder were women and children - hiding in plain sight.
6th January, 2025
Cambridge's top stories in 2024 included CAMPOP experts busting myths about family, sex, marriage and work in English history.
Sex before marriage was unusual in the past – myth! The rich have always outlived the poor – myth!
The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (CAMPOP) have busted some of the biggest myths about life in England since the Middle Ages, challenging assumptions about everything from life expectancy to migration.
Transport and urban growth in the First Industrial Revolution
19th December, 2024
The Industrial Revolution led to dramatic economic changes which persist to the present day. A new paper from Eduard J Alvarez-Palau, Dan Bogart, Max Satchell, and Leigh Shaw-Taylor, focuses on urban areas in England and Wales - the birthplace of the First Industrial Revolution - and investigates the role of early transport improvements, such as improvements to rivers and roads, building canals, and reducing sailing costs.
Departmental links
- 29th April 2025:
Pan-European efforts to unionize survey interviewers in the 1970s. Details… - 7th May 2025:
Challenges in estimating historical crisis mortality: spatial heterogeneity, endogenous incompleteness, sample size, and ad hoc methods.. Details… - 21st May 2025:
The public speaks back: health communication in Britain, 1980s-2020.. Details… - 27th May 2025:
The culture of defense: Trade unionism, the arms trade, and the subject of labor history in neoliberal Britain. Details… - 11th June 2025:
Violence and emigration; evidence from early modern Corsica.. Details…