R. Lenoir and J.-J. Yvorel, (eds.) : Michel Foucault. Surveiller et punir : la prison vingt ans après

In the English speaking world there is no lack of books or collections of essays somehow related to the work of Michel Foucault. One only has to consider the enormous flow of publications on « Gouvernementality » easily accessible in Current Contents. But the publication under review was only possible in France. In accordance with Michel Foucault's own way to do philosophy and politics, this book combines in a very interesting way different approaches to his seminal work about prisons : The b..

Frédéric Chauvaud, Les criminels du Poitou au XIXe siècle, Les monstres, les désespérés et les voleurs

Ce livre comporte une thèse très nette, qu’il faut bien lire comme une critique fondamentale adressée à la recherche en histoire des criminalités des 30 dernières années en France : les statistiques de criminalité seraient lacunaires et elles « ne disent pas tout… même si elles s’avéraient totalement fiables et prolixes, elles ne fabriqueraient que des criminels désincarnés, abstraits, sans attaches locales, sans épaisseur et sans chair » (p. 10). Chauvaud juxtapose à ce constat le grand inté..

Federico Garza Carvajal: Vir. Perceptions of Manliness in Andalucía and México 1561-1699

Carvajal pretends to analyse the discourses on sodomy and the repression of sodomites in 16th- and 17th-century Spain and Mexico. His main focus is on the link between the «new» image of man – called «vir» by the author – as it developed during these centuries with the imperial politics of mainland Spain. He reports having counted and analysed 300 trials in different archives in Spain and Mexico city. 5% of the inquisitorial cases concerned sodomy, which thus qualifies for second place behind..

L’image de Moscou entre la description standardisée des Lumières et la recherche de la singularité russe

AbstractA representation of Moscow halfway between the standardized description typical of the Enlightenment and the search for Russian singularity : Engelbrecht Wichelhausen’s medical topography (1803).This article analyzes the content and organization of a medical text written about Moscow during the Enlightenment. One should expect from such a text that it fit into the classifications of the Enlightenment and that it meet its readers’ need to understand the Russian difference. We successively study the author’s -- the German doctor Wichelhausen’s -- legitimation strategies, his different readings of the object “city” and his arguments. The result is paradoxical : Wichelhausen sees Moscow as a city of the Enlightenment just like any other, which can bear comparison with other European and Russian cities, but which can also be fundamentally different and point to potential changes in Russia

Federico Garza Carvajal: Vir. Perceptions of Manliness in Andalucía and México 1561-1699

Carvajal pretends to analyse the discourses on sodomy and the repression of sodomites in 16th- and 17th-century Spain and Mexico. His main focus is on the link between the «new» image of man – called «vir» by the author – as it developed during these centuries with the imperial politics of mainland Spain. He reports having counted and analysed 300 trials in different archives in Spain and Mexico city. 5% of the inquisitorial cases concerned sodomy, which thus qualifies for second place behind..

From contrasting inequalities towards intersectionally differentiated healthy life styles? The position of gender inequalities in leading paradigms in the social history of medicine and health research, 1750–2000

At first the author reconsiders the leading paradigms of the social history of medicine and health research during the last decades and their different ways to conceptualize gender: medicalization, the medical market place, patients’ history and health history. He then turns to the concept of intersectionality and applies it to central issues of a genderspecific history of health: He considers health resources: the genderspecific capacity to speak and write about the body, health and illness; nutrition; bodily movement and sports – and behavior such as smoking. He shows, how genderspecific attributions and the role of class have changed in various degrees during the last 200 years. Gender-specific appropriations of health services are analysed next. Attending a physician or using medications changed fundamentally around 1860: men who were more active in this field before 1860, were overtaken by women afterwards. In his conclusion the author argues that the concept of intersectionality does not consider variables such as the person’s position during the lifecycle, the sociocultural-context of the actors and supply and range of markets sufficiently. All three do heavily influence health behaviors in a long-term historical perspective. The author postulates to abandon the idea of a strong relation between class or gender with specific health statuses or behaviors. Instead he pleads for a more open and empirical research on how socio-cultural milieus and gendered health behaviors are linked through different healthy life-styles.At first the author reconsiders the leading paradigms of the social history of medicine and health research during the last decades and their different ways to conceptualize gender: medicalization, the medical market place, patients’ history and health history. He then turns to the concept of intersectionality and applies it to central issues of a genderspecific history of health: He considers health resources: the genderspecific capacity to speak and write about the body, health and illness; nutrition; bodily movement and sports – and behavior such as smoking. He shows, how genderspecific attributions and the role of class have changed in various degrees during the last 200 years. Gender-specific appropriations of health services are analysed next. Attending a physician or using medications changed fundamentally around 1860: men who were more active in this field before 1860, were overtaken by women afterwards. In his conclusion the author argues that the concept of intersectionality does not consider variables such as the person’s position during the lifecycle, the sociocultural-context of the actors and supply and range of markets sufficiently. All three do heavily influence health behaviors in a long-term historical perspective. The author postulates to abandon the idea of a strong relation between class or gender with specific health statuses or behaviors. Instead he pleads for a more open and empirical research on how socio-cultural milieus and gendered health behaviors are linked through different healthy life-styles

La investigación histórica y el debate actual sobre la salud masculina: el caso de Alemania

The current discourse on men’s health refers too insistently to an obsolete and monolithic pattern of masculinity contrasting “men” with “women” in a simplistic manner. However, historical analysis shows the remarkable changes that have occurred in the health of men, both in terms of their attitudes and their behaviors, since the industrial revolution; so, for example, the relationship between masculinity and risk behavior throughout life, the professional life and the world of work, and also the medical evaluation of certain high-risk behaviors such as smoking. Differences of the life expectancy between men and women deserve an explanation more accurate and less simplistic. From a historical perspective of longue-durée, it is also a myth that men keep silent on matters of health.El discurso actual sobre la salud masculina remite con demasiada insistencia a una imagen obsoleta y monolítica de la masculinidad contrastando de manera simplista el colectivo “hombres” con el de las “mujeres”. Sin embargo, el análisis histórico hace muy evidentes los notables cambios que se han producido en la salud de los hombres, tanto en lo que se refiere a sus actitudes como a sus comportamientos, desde la revolución industrial; así, por ejemplo, se ha transformado no solamente la vida profesional y el mundo del trabajo, sino también la relación entre la masculinidad y el comportamiento de riesgo a lo largo de la vida y, asimismo, la evaluación médica de ciertos comportamientos de alto riesgo como fumar. Las diferencias en la esperanza de vida entre hombres y mujeres merecen una explicación más precisa y menos simplista. Desde una perspectiva histórica de longue-durée, también es un mito que los hombres guarden silencio en asuntos de salud

Kingston (Rebecca), Montesquieu and the Parlement of Bordeaux

Kingston's endeavour to reconstruct the political theory of Montesquieu takes into account his practical experience as a member of the Parlement of Bordeaux. There, Montesquieu acted as a judge in the chamber of criminal justice for the exceptionally long period of ten and a half years (1715-1724), before he sold his office. Kingston characterizes the judicial socialization of Montesquieu as dominated by practice in the current jurisprudence. She then reconstructs the political ideology of th..