History

Famine and Dearth Database

Economic and Social History, History | Bengali, eighteenth century, fiction, Hindi, India, non-fiction, pamphlets, periodicals, Persian, plays, poetry, seventeenth century, sixteenth century, surveys, translation, United Kingdom

The Famine and Dearth database contains searchable transcriptions of over 700 multilingual primary sources relating to situations of famine and dearth in early modern India and Britain. The archive contains texts in ten different languages including Persian, Bengali and Hindi as well as English, and offers English translations for the majority of texts. These texts cover a wide range of genres, including chronicle histories, gazetteers, official correspondence, legislation, pamphlets, periodicals, plays, poetry, surveys, and fiction and non-fiction prose.

Data type: text

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Crisis DB – US Political Violence Database

Economic and Social History, History | eighteenth century, nineteenth century, twentieth century, twenty-first century, United States, war and conflict

Collection of historical records of violent incidents in the United States, spanning from 1782 to the present day. The dataset is categorized by date, incident type, subtypes, casualties, geographical location of the violence, documented fatalities, and the authoritative sources from which this data is derived. Additionally, each entry includes a detailed narrative describing the specific circumstances surrounding the violent incident.

Data type: spatial, temporal

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Caloric Suitability Index dataset

Economic and Social History, History | agriculture, geography

“The Caloric Suitability Indices” (CSI) capture the variation in potential crop yield across the globe, as measured in calories per hectare per year. Moreover, in light of the expansion in the set of crops that are available for cultivation in the course of the Columbian Exchange, the CSI indices provide a distinct measure for caloric suitability for the pre-1500 and the post-1500 era. The CSI indices provide four estimates of caloric suitability for each cell of size 5′× 5 in the world: The maximum potential caloric yield attainable given the set of crops that are suitable for cultivation in the pre-1500 period. The maximum potential caloric yield attainable, given the set of crops that are suitable for cultivation in the post-1500 period. The average potential yields within each cell, attainable given the set of crops that are suitable for cultivation in the pre-1500 period. The average potential yields within each cell, attainable given the set of crops that are suitable for cultivation in the post-1500 period. The Caloric Suitability Indices (Galor and Özak, 2016) captures the potential agricultural output (measured in calories) based on crops that were available for cultivation in the Pre-1500CE and Post-1500CE eras. It is available for 5’ by 5’ grid cells and at the country level. The data can be used to assess or account for the exogenous effect of agricultural potential on various economic and social outcomes. The data can be used to assess or account for the exogenous effect of agricultural potential on various economic and social outcomes. An IPython notebook is included to show how it can be used and also compares it with another measure of agricultural suitability. The data is provided as a service to the academic research community (see license for permitted uses).

Data type: spatial

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Becoming Coolies: Rethinking the Origins of the Indian Labour Diaspora, 1772-1920

History, Post-Colonial Studies | 19th-century, asia, colonialism, migration

A webpage presenting a carefully selected and redacted sample of 4,600 Migrants who left from Calcutta (Kolkata) to work in sugar plantations Mauritius, Natal (South Africa), Trinidad and Guyana between 1857 and 1869. The database was compiled for research on immediate post-1857 migration from north India.

Data type: text

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Bess of Hardwick’s Letters

Economic and Social History, History | 16th-century, Early Modern, England, letters

Bess of Hardwick (c.1521/2 or 1527-1608) is one of Elizabethan England's most famous figures. She is renowned for her reputation as a dynast and indomitable matriarch and perhaps best known as the builder of great stately homes like the magnificent Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth House. The story of her life told to date typically emphasises her modest birth, her rise through the ranks of society, her four husbands, each of greater wealth than the last, and her ambitious aggrandisement of her family. Bess of Hardwick's letters, which number almost 250 items of correspondence, bring to life her extraordinary story and allow us to eavesdrop on her world. Her letters allow us to reposition Bess as a complex woman of her times, immersed in the literacy and textual practices of everyday life, as her correspondence extends from servants, friends and family, to queens and officers of state.

Data type: images, temporal, text

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Afterlives of Urban Muslim Asia: Muslim Perspectives on Non-Muslim Minorities in Aleppo, and Life Histories of Aleppine Armenians in Kuwait, 2022-2024

Cultural History, History | 21st-century, Christianity, ethnic minorities, ethnography, interviews, Islam, Middle East, war and conflict, working class

Questionnaires in Arabic were distributed electronically to Muslim residents and former residents of popular / working-class (sha‘bi) quarters of Aleppo through an Arab Muslim former resident of the Hilluk district of Aleppo who had migrated to Gaziantep during the Syrian civil war (2012-). Life history interviews were also conducted with prominent Aleppine Armenian members of the Armenian community in Kuwait: the priest of the Armenian church in Aleppo, and two leading Syrian Armenian merchants who run successful businesses in Kuwait and play a prominent role in the Armenian community there.

Data type: text

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Afterlives of Muslim Asia: 2022-2023

Cultural History, History | ethnic minorities, ethnography, interviews, Islam, Judaism, Middle East, migration, Sikhism

The data collated is largely gathered through individuals with members of diaspora Afghans from a variety of religious backgrounds, including those identifying as Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish. The study focuses on diaspora settings in which these communities are especially established, notably London and New York. Individuals were selected to be interviewed on the basis of their playing an active role in the life of the communities and also on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken by the researcher. The data also includes a discussion of the ethnographic work undertaken by the researcher in the form of a series of reports. Included also are notes in a book on Afghanistan's Hindu community (translated from Persian).

Data type: text

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