A social history of Europe – reconsidered
A fully revised and updated edition of Béla Tomka’s book titled A social history of Europe in the 20th century has been published. In addition to giving a comprehensive knowledge, the book presents many interesting social problems, including those from the current century. The author pays special attention to the problem of the diversity and unity of European societies, and to international comparisons, including the social development of Hungary.
Key thinkers and Working Papers series
Our October meeting was held in November and again on a web-based platform. Continuing the introduction of the key thinkers of globalization, Zsombor Bódy summarized the work of Manuel Castells. Our new publication series called HistGlob Working Papers, will be launched in the near future. The first issue will feature a study by Péter Bencsik, which we discussed in depth during today’s session.
Online meetings continued
Our September session also took place online. We have started to introduce the key thinkers of globalization. This time Márkus Keller talked about Saskia Sassen. Later on, we discussed the next-year issue of the social history journal, Korall, which will be a thematic issue presenting the studies of our research group. Among the authors, Péter Nagy and Péter Bencsik has already outlined their plans about these future studies.
Béla Tomka's new book
Béla Tomka’s new book, titled Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption, and Quality of Life in East Central Europe since 1945 has been published by CEUPress. The monograph compares the broadly interpreted well-being of East-Central European states, and thereby placing the analysis in a wider European context. Beyond the conventional paradigm of economic growth, the author examines the fields of consumption, leisure time and quality of life too. More information is available here.
Workshop
The members of the research group, accompanied by Pál Germuska, Gábor Gyáni and György Kövér held a workshop on June 24, 2020. After the opening words of Béla Tomka, presentations of Pál Germuska, Gábor Koloh, Katalin Baráth and Zsombor Bódy were held with a short discussion.
Demography, mobility, border crossings
During our third virtual meeting, we discussed the long-term plans of the research group. Later on, we commented on Gábor Koloh’s brand new manuscript titled „Marriage mobility in Southern Transdanubia: Regional endogamy in and around Vajszló, 1750–1949”).
Handbook on the 20th-century history of Central and Eastern Europe
Béla Tomka and Zsombor Bódy, our colleagues, have contributed to the first volume of “The Routledge History Handbook of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century” (subtitled “Challenges of Modernity”). The four-volume series is one of the most important international coproductions in this field over the last two decades. For more information see the home page of the publisher.
Indices of globalization
How globalized is a country? At our second video conference in April, the globalization-related indices were in the focus of our discussion. These indices have a complex methodology with a large number of indicators which try to measure the level of globalization of a certain country. The most important indices, the so-called KOF-index and the Maastricht index, were presented by Béla Tomka.
History of globalization and Global History
We continued our work even during the current pandemic situation. At our first zoom meeting, Béla Tomka presented a special historical branch called Global History which, of course, differs from the history of globalization. Global history seeks to combine and expand traditional research on nation-states or smaller regions to a larger scale with a new approach to historical space. More information is available in Sebastian Conrad’s book titled „What is global history?” and also by listening to a podcast series on this topic in English.
Internationalization vs. globalization – the case of international organizations
At our next meeting, our colleague, Zsombor Bódy presented his source exploration work titled „Internationalization vs. globalization – the case of international organizations”. We have been enriched with a number of new information, such as the export of knowledge to the Middle East in the Kádár era and its global and domestic contexts. Besides, we concluded the discussion of individual working plans (Katalin Baráth), and clarified the timing of the tasks for the entire duration of the research team.