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Gregory Hanlon

Dalhousie University, History, Faculty Member

History of Sociability +74

Munro Professor of History and Distinguished Research Professor at Dalhousie University: Trained in France in the Annales tradition, I study behaviour in historical societies with the aid of the behavioural sciences broadly, from human ethology, to evolutionary psychology, rational actor sociology (Boudon) and anthropology. This extends and updates the Annales project, which combined history with the social and behavioural sciences broadly speaking. Ideologies take a back seat in this neo-Darwinian approach.

Over the years this has resulted in books on religious history, military history and a couple of close studies of communities in 17th-century Italy and France where it was possible to situate everyone by name over the space of two generations. The textbook on early modern Italy 1550-1800 was the first synthesis aimed at that period in any language. Another textbook on early modern military history, embracing almost all of Europe between 1500 and 1750 is the first wide-ranging synthesis in several decades.

The study of routine infanticide by married couples, working from parish records, (the phenomenon almost never left traces in judicial records) has just been completed, with the help of Masters and Honours students. "Death Control in the West 1500-1800", which analyzes sex ratios from more than 600,000 baptisms and a score of status animarum censuses, embracing dozens of rural and urban communities in Italy, France and England, demonstrates that post-partum abortion was a key component of the Western demographic system, similar to most other peoples on the planet.

Present research focuses on display behaviour in Baroque Italy, ca. 1570 to ca. 1740, from top to bottom of urban and rural society in Farnese Parma and Piacenza. It begins with an exploration of universal aesthetic instincts and their wider social ramifications in early modern Europe.

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Papers

Death Control in the West: Sex Ratios at Baptism in Italy, France and England 1500-1800

Married Europeans, like people everywhere around the world, practiced neo-natal infanticide on so... more Married Europeans, like people everywhere around the world, practiced neo-natal infanticide on some considerable scale until the modern age, by no means limited to girls or newborns of poor families. This is the first substantial exploration of the phenomenon, applied to Italy, France and England over the entire span of the early modern period. With the collaboration of Ciara Quigley, Domenic Rossi, Robin Greene Cann, Evan Johnson and Laura Hynes Jenkins.

Gregory Hanlon short CV 2022

Employment History; Books to date; Principal Articles to date; Prizes and Distinctions; Invited L... more

Early Modern Italy 1550-1790: A Comprehensive Bibliography of titles in English and French, 12th edition, 2016

This most recent edition of the bibliography contains almost 21,200 titles in English (64%) and F... more

Routine infanticide by married couples in Counter-Reformation Tuscany (2003)

This is the first study to propose that Europeans practiced neonatal infanticide on a large scale... more This is the first study to propose that Europeans practiced neonatal infanticide on a large scale in the early modern era, based on careful examination of sex-ratios in southern Tuscany from the 16th to the 18th century. Published in Quaderni Storici (in Italian) in 2003. The project, extended to France and to North America is ongoing and largely confirms this first research.

Evolutionary psychology & human ethology for historians (2006)

Military History and the Behavioural Sciences

This talk (which alludes to many authors but contains no notes) suggests how neo-Darwinian theory... more This talk (which alludes to many authors but contains no notes) suggests how neo-Darwinian theory enriches our understanding of war, which is an important human universal. Passing in review some important studies in anthropology, it concludes with some recent attempts in historical writing to increase our knowledge about how men behave in combat and on campaign.

Sources for a battle: Tornavento (1636)

Parma in the era of duke Odoardo, "the Great" (1630-1650)

La Guerre des milices en Italie du nord 1635-1637

A Tuscan fief in time of famine: Montefollonico 1610-1670

Books

European Military Rivalry 1500-1750 Front Matter

This book is the first synthesis of European military history in several decades, embracing the g... more

Human Nature in rural Tuscany: an early modern history

This small book constitutes a close anthropology of a single Tuscan village and the farms around ... more This small book constitutes a close anthropology of a single Tuscan village and the farms around it, during the space of two generations in the seventeenth century. Perhaps the first history book to apply the lessons of human and primate ethology to a broad spectrum of behaviors, it studies the population taken as a collection of individuals with varying and often conflicting interests and temperaments. Underpinning the work is a wide variety of sources allowing the historian to examine these people and their predicaments in great detail. It studies in turn their governance, co-operation, competition, reproduction and invention.

Human Nature Rural Tuscany: Part One

Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

This small book from 2007 is one of the first to explore a wide range of human behaviour in histo... more This small book from 2007 is one of the first to explore a wide range of human behaviour in historical time, a Tuscan village and its surrounding farms over two generations in the seventeenth century. This first part (of three) introduces the approach based in human ethology and evolutionary psychology, examines the governance of the community (participation and hierarchy) and how contemporaries lived together for mutual benefit (sociability and cooperation).

Human Nature Rural Tuscany 3: Invention

Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

This final section of the book examines how people coped with events they could not control. The ... more This final section of the book examines how people coped with events they could not control. The onset of the Little Ice Age and the great 17th-century depression forced villagers to adapt and to restructure the rural economy. The apex of the Counter-Reformation coincided with this downturn, as people appealed to higher powers for their salvation. Almost imperceptibly their social and political worlds expanded beyond the village, making them part of a larger Tuscan state.

Human Nature Rural Tuscany 2: Competition and Reproduction

Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Second part of a pioneering work examining a Tuscan village of the seventeenth century in the lig... more Second part of a pioneering work examining a Tuscan village of the seventeenth century in the light of human behavioural universals. The chapter on competition studies the fault lines of rural communities from 500 criminal trials, thousands of lawsuits and property damage claims and how they were managed. Reproduction deals with the formation of couples, the raising of children and the issues stemming from cohabitation. It contains one of the first close studies of sex-ratios and the reality of common neo-natal infanticide.

ITALY 1636: Cemetery of Armies

A closely-researched and detailed study of the operations and tactics of early modern armies, it ... more A closely-researched and detailed study of the operations and tactics of early modern armies, it uses the French and Savoyard invasion of Spanish Lombardy in 1636 to explore warfare through a neo-Darwinian lens. This emphasizes the universal features of human behavior and psychology as they relate to violence and war. Oxford University Press, January 2016, Paperback version 2018; Italian translation LEG 2018.

The Hero of Italy: Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma, his soldiers and his subjects in the Thirty Years War

This new book examines the misadventure of young warmonger Duke Odoardo of Parma, keen to make hi... more This new book examines the misadventure of young warmonger Duke Odoardo of Parma, keen to make his reputation in the Thirty Years’ War as an ally of France. In addition to constituting a rare study of the Italian theatre of Europe’s first Great War, it contains a soldier-by-soldier analysis of the duke’s army in detail unavailable for any country of the period. It also studies the impact of war and occupation on the duchy’s population through a close examination of parish registers in city and country. This work helps explain the gradual marginalization of Italian states with respect to great power politics of the modern era.

L'eroe d'Italia: Il Duca Odoardo Farnese, i suoi soldati e suoi sudditi nella Guerra dei Trent'anni, Acies Edizioni, 2017. Traduzione Simone Caffari

Euro 14,00 " Molti hanno lodato lo spirito d'animo del duca di Parma, un esempio singolare e most... more Euro 14,00 " Molti hanno lodato lo spirito d'animo del duca di Parma, un esempio singolare e mostra spiritosa, della franchezza di un animo degno di Principe libero, e di imparare ai Spagnoli come si dovevano tenere conto dei principi italiani, e con qual rispetto si deva con essi procedere. Altri hanno biasimate le azioni del duca, che era degli primi anni imbevuto di pensieri grandi, di pretenzioni maggiori della sua condizione, che non c'era buona e sufficiente ragione di rompere con la Spagna "

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three seasons in European history

The first single-author textbook (in any language) focusing on the long period between the Counci... more The first single-author textbook (in any language) focusing on the long period between the Council of Trent and the French Revolution, this work constitutes a compendium of basic information about every area of Italy over those 250 years. As a didactic text first and foremost, the content ranges from the geography of the peninsula, to the political, social, cultural and economic life manifested in city and country, with an eye to Italy’s relative position in Europe. It also constitutes a synthesis of Italian, French, British and North American scholarship over the last two generations.

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three seasons in European History, Palgrave, 2000. Part 4

The first and most comprehensive textbook describing all aspects of Italian history and civilizat... more

Death Control in the West: Sex Ratios at Baptism in Italy, France and England 1500-1800

Married Europeans, like people everywhere around the world, practiced neo-natal infanticide on so... more Married Europeans, like people everywhere around the world, practiced neo-natal infanticide on some considerable scale until the modern age, by no means limited to girls or newborns of poor families. This is the first substantial exploration of the phenomenon, applied to Italy, France and England over the entire span of the early modern period. With the collaboration of Ciara Quigley, Domenic Rossi, Robin Greene Cann, Evan Johnson and Laura Hynes Jenkins.

Gregory Hanlon short CV 2022

Employment History; Books to date; Principal Articles to date; Prizes and Distinctions; Invited L... more

Early Modern Italy 1550-1790: A Comprehensive Bibliography of titles in English and French, 12th edition, 2016

This most recent edition of the bibliography contains almost 21,200 titles in English (64%) and F... more

Routine infanticide by married couples in Counter-Reformation Tuscany (2003)

This is the first study to propose that Europeans practiced neonatal infanticide on a large scale... more This is the first study to propose that Europeans practiced neonatal infanticide on a large scale in the early modern era, based on careful examination of sex-ratios in southern Tuscany from the 16th to the 18th century. Published in Quaderni Storici (in Italian) in 2003. The project, extended to France and to North America is ongoing and largely confirms this first research.

Evolutionary psychology & human ethology for historians (2006)

Military History and the Behavioural Sciences

This talk (which alludes to many authors but contains no notes) suggests how neo-Darwinian theory... more This talk (which alludes to many authors but contains no notes) suggests how neo-Darwinian theory enriches our understanding of war, which is an important human universal. Passing in review some important studies in anthropology, it concludes with some recent attempts in historical writing to increase our knowledge about how men behave in combat and on campaign.

Sources for a battle: Tornavento (1636)

Parma in the era of duke Odoardo, "the Great" (1630-1650)

La Guerre des milices en Italie du nord 1635-1637

A Tuscan fief in time of famine: Montefollonico 1610-1670

European Military Rivalry 1500-1750 Front Matter

This book is the first synthesis of European military history in several decades, embracing the g... more

Human Nature in rural Tuscany: an early modern history

This small book constitutes a close anthropology of a single Tuscan village and the farms around ... more This small book constitutes a close anthropology of a single Tuscan village and the farms around it, during the space of two generations in the seventeenth century. Perhaps the first history book to apply the lessons of human and primate ethology to a broad spectrum of behaviors, it studies the population taken as a collection of individuals with varying and often conflicting interests and temperaments. Underpinning the work is a wide variety of sources allowing the historian to examine these people and their predicaments in great detail. It studies in turn their governance, co-operation, competition, reproduction and invention.

Human Nature Rural Tuscany: Part One

Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

This small book from 2007 is one of the first to explore a wide range of human behaviour in histo... more This small book from 2007 is one of the first to explore a wide range of human behaviour in historical time, a Tuscan village and its surrounding farms over two generations in the seventeenth century. This first part (of three) introduces the approach based in human ethology and evolutionary psychology, examines the governance of the community (participation and hierarchy) and how contemporaries lived together for mutual benefit (sociability and cooperation).

Human Nature Rural Tuscany 3: Invention

Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

This final section of the book examines how people coped with events they could not control. The ... more This final section of the book examines how people coped with events they could not control. The onset of the Little Ice Age and the great 17th-century depression forced villagers to adapt and to restructure the rural economy. The apex of the Counter-Reformation coincided with this downturn, as people appealed to higher powers for their salvation. Almost imperceptibly their social and political worlds expanded beyond the village, making them part of a larger Tuscan state.

Human Nature Rural Tuscany 2: Competition and Reproduction

Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Second part of a pioneering work examining a Tuscan village of the seventeenth century in the lig... more Second part of a pioneering work examining a Tuscan village of the seventeenth century in the light of human behavioural universals. The chapter on competition studies the fault lines of rural communities from 500 criminal trials, thousands of lawsuits and property damage claims and how they were managed. Reproduction deals with the formation of couples, the raising of children and the issues stemming from cohabitation. It contains one of the first close studies of sex-ratios and the reality of common neo-natal infanticide.

ITALY 1636: Cemetery of Armies

A closely-researched and detailed study of the operations and tactics of early modern armies, it ... more A closely-researched and detailed study of the operations and tactics of early modern armies, it uses the French and Savoyard invasion of Spanish Lombardy in 1636 to explore warfare through a neo-Darwinian lens. This emphasizes the universal features of human behavior and psychology as they relate to violence and war. Oxford University Press, January 2016, Paperback version 2018; Italian translation LEG 2018.

The Hero of Italy: Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma, his soldiers and his subjects in the Thirty Years War

This new book examines the misadventure of young warmonger Duke Odoardo of Parma, keen to make hi... more This new book examines the misadventure of young warmonger Duke Odoardo of Parma, keen to make his reputation in the Thirty Years’ War as an ally of France. In addition to constituting a rare study of the Italian theatre of Europe’s first Great War, it contains a soldier-by-soldier analysis of the duke’s army in detail unavailable for any country of the period. It also studies the impact of war and occupation on the duchy’s population through a close examination of parish registers in city and country. This work helps explain the gradual marginalization of Italian states with respect to great power politics of the modern era.

L'eroe d'Italia: Il Duca Odoardo Farnese, i suoi soldati e suoi sudditi nella Guerra dei Trent'anni, Acies Edizioni, 2017. Traduzione Simone Caffari

Euro 14,00 " Molti hanno lodato lo spirito d'animo del duca di Parma, un esempio singolare e most... more Euro 14,00 " Molti hanno lodato lo spirito d'animo del duca di Parma, un esempio singolare e mostra spiritosa, della franchezza di un animo degno di Principe libero, e di imparare ai Spagnoli come si dovevano tenere conto dei principi italiani, e con qual rispetto si deva con essi procedere. Altri hanno biasimate le azioni del duca, che era degli primi anni imbevuto di pensieri grandi, di pretenzioni maggiori della sua condizione, che non c'era buona e sufficiente ragione di rompere con la Spagna "

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three seasons in European history

The first single-author textbook (in any language) focusing on the long period between the Counci... more The first single-author textbook (in any language) focusing on the long period between the Council of Trent and the French Revolution, this work constitutes a compendium of basic information about every area of Italy over those 250 years. As a didactic text first and foremost, the content ranges from the geography of the peninsula, to the political, social, cultural and economic life manifested in city and country, with an eye to Italy’s relative position in Europe. It also constitutes a synthesis of Italian, French, British and North American scholarship over the last two generations.

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three seasons in European History, Palgrave, 2000. Part 4

The first and most comprehensive textbook describing all aspects of Italian history and civilizat... more

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three seasons in European history, Palgrave, 2000. Part 5

The first and most comprehensive textbook describing all aspects of Italian history and civilizat... more

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three seasons in European History, Palgrave, 2000. Part 3

The first and most comprehensive textbook describing all aspects of Italian history and civilizat... more

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three seasons in European history, Palgrave, 2000. Part 2

The first and most comprehensive textbook describing all aspects of Italian history and civilizat... more

Early Modern Italy 1550-1800: Three Seasons in European History, Palgrave, 2000. Part 1

The first and most comprehensive textbook describing all aspects of Italian history and civilizat... more

Early Modern Italy 1550-1790: A Comprehensive bibliography of titles in English and French, 11th edition 2014

Vita rurale in Terra di Siena: Natura umana e storia. traduzione Simone Caffari

Storia dell'Italia moderna 1550-1800

Confession and Community in Seventeenth-Century France, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993 and 2015

This book is the first close study of religious coexistence and practical toleration in the early... more This book is the first close study of religious coexistence and practical toleration in the early modern era. Winner of the 1992 Brewer Prize, American Society for Church History, as the best book manuscript for any field of religious history in 1992. Runner-up (after initial tie) of the prize awarded by the American Huguenot Society.

Confession & Community in 17th-century France: Catholic and Protestant co-existence in Aquitaine: part 1

The first detailed study of local coexistence between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, focuse... more

Confession and Community in 17th century France: Catholic and Protestant coexistence in Aquitaine part 2

The first close study of Catholic and Protestant coexistence in local communities across most of ... more

Routine Infanticide in the West 1500-1800

History Compass, 2016

Historians have assumed that early modern Europeans did not practice neo-naticide similar to the ... more Historians have assumed that early modern Europeans did not practice neo-naticide similar to the great Asian civilizations, but sex-ratio studies are only now entering the demographic literature. This article passes in review both published and unpublished research on sex ratios at baptism in Italy, France, England and colonial Acadia, together with juvenile sex ratios drawn from censuses in Germany, France and Italy. Both endemic and conjunctural imbalances appear everywhere, but they could target females or males depending upon the context. It is still considered newsworthy that in much of the world, parents select the sex of their children before bringing a pregnancy to term. In China, the sex ratio at birth is currently 116 males for every female, while in India, the rate is 111, significantly above the well-established biological norm of 105. 1 This sex preference creates well-publicized difficulties for young men seeking brides (The Economist, April 18 2015). Why kill females preferentially? The literature often lays the blame on misogynistic ideologies, suggesting that it would be sufficient to combat them with propaganda in order to eradicate the practice. There are several better reasons: first of all, in agricultural economies requiring strenuous ploughing with large animals and equally strenuous field and forest work far from home, males were better value. In patrilocal societies where husbands, or their families, received a sizeable dowry for the bride (which served as a security cushion for her and her children in the event of the premature death of either spouse), parents were unequal to the task of providing those for several daughters. Finally, if the aim is to keep the future population stable in order not to overstretch resources, then killing future child-bearers is simply more efficient than killing males and females indiscriminately. Today unwanted pregnancies are usually terminated by abortion, but in the past, the safer solution was to kill the newborn or expose it to the elements. Infanticide, like abortion, may be human universals, that is, part of the behavioural repertoire of every known society, although its frequency would vary according to local environmental conditions. 2 Humans are not alone in this behaviour: mothers in many species of mammals will sometimes cull their offspring at birth. In Darwinian language, infanticide, or abortion that has replaced it, are adaptive mechanisms involving some kind of rational decision-making on the part of the parent, which is usually the mother. 3 In most societies, newborns are not considered full-f ledged persons when leaving the womb. Rather, some sort of ceremony confers a name and social identity on them, sometimes providing an additional set of symbolic kin. Returning to the great Asian civilizations where sex-selective behaviour persists, parents enact strategies to better themselves and assess the likelihood of survival and future of the newborn infant. In traditional China and Japan, neonatal infanticide was a kind of post-natal abortion that allowed parents to choose the number, the spacing and the sex of their offspring, while coping better with short-term difficulties like famine. 4 In his compelling recent study on northeastern Japan, Fabian Drixler suggests that one-third of live births ended with infanticide during the 18th century, despite government disapproval of the practice. 5 Historians sometimes

La Nature humaine sous le microscope judiciaire de l'Ancien Régime

Actes de l'Académie nationale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Bordeaux, 5e série, vol. 43, 2019

La Contre-réforme au quotidien dans le diocèse d'Agen 1666-1669

Clairac et la Réforme: Actes du Colloque de 2018, Clair Morizet ed., Société Académique d'Agen , 2019

A repertoire of 1,700 letters dispatched from the desk of bishop Claude Joly, (sent at the rate o... more A repertoire of 1,700 letters dispatched from the desk of bishop Claude Joly, (sent at the rate of several every day) enables the historian to follow the manner in which this forceful prelate imposed his views on his underlings. It underscores how little place the repression of Huguenots held in the late 1660s, relative to the need to allocate capable priests in rural parishes, and to enhance the discipline of the Catholic Church.

Human nature under the judicial microscope, pp. 651-666

Le fonti della storia dell'Italia preunitaria: casi di studio per la loro analisi e 'valorizzazione', Gerassimos Pagratis ed., 2019

This paper surveys the use social and anthropological historians made of French and Italian crimi... more This paper surveys the use social and anthropological historians made of French and Italian criminal justice records in order to analyze those societies in the 16th and 17th centuries, from 'mentalités' to micro-history. Far from being 'Others', subjects in that time and place reveal how much the human behavioural repertoire has in common.

Geoffrey Parker's Universal Soldier revisited: European military history and human universals

Early Modern War Narratives and the Revolt in the Low Countries, eds R Fagel, L Alvarez Francés & B Santiago Belmonte, 2020

The article passes in review social science writing on war as a human universal, and the constant... more

40: Historians and the Evolutionary Approach to Human Behavior, pp. 489-506.

Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior, Jerome Barkow, Lance Workman & Will Readers eds. 978-1-316-64282-5, 2020

Darwinian approaches to human behavior are inherently historical; recounting the origin and devel... more Darwinian approaches to human behavior are inherently historical; recounting the origin and development of Homo sapiens and the increasing complexity of human societies over many millennia is second nature to evolutionary psychologists and behavioral ecologists. Admitting the existence of biologically based human universals entails some considerable adjustment for historians, who are forced to retool by learning more about various social and biological sciences. Most historians have specialized interests by region, period, and topic; it is rare enough for practitioners to study the same problem across longer periods or in a different locale.
This contribution will try to speak to both communities of scholars, on the off chance that practicing historians will wish to rethink their problems afresh from the perspective of human nature. Historians often assume that all of our practices are subject to constant change, where we can apply a date to observable shifts in behavior. Human nature posits that some things change slowly or not at all, and this helps explain the uncanny similarity of the situations and motivations one finds across time and space. This section will pass in review some of the main acquisitions of a half-century of evolutionary inquiry for the benefit of historians, without pretending that scholars follow identical approaches or reach the same conclusions. I have no need here to take sides in the debates between evolutionary psychologists, human behavioral ecologists, or ethologists, or to choose between individual or group selection. Evolutionary thinking can inform a vast array of historical problems; indeed, it embraces every facet of human activity, but in this brief contribution, I will discuss only four areas at more length: reproduction, interpersonal conflict and violence, war, and aesthetics.

La fortune des marchands et des negociants de Libourne a la veille de la Revolution, in Revue Historique et Archeologique du Libournais, 1979, pp. 17-24, with Jean-Paul Jourdan

History from an Evolutionary Perspective

Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 2017

Theories of biological, social and cultural evolution, built on models of reciprocal altruism, he... more Theories of biological, social and cultural evolution, built on models of reciprocal altruism, help explain the principal problems of all the social sciences, and of history in particular. After a brief genealogy of this trend from the 1990s, the article discusses theoretical and empirical work done in three areas of enquiry: Reproduction, Interpersonal Conflict and War, and Aesthetics and Display.

Catholics and Protestants in 17th-century Aquitaine

A short preview of the book "Confession and Community in 17th-century France" (1993), this articl... more

Destruction and reconstruction of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in the 1630s and 1640s, Storia Economica, 19, 2016, n.1, 249-278

The Thirty Years' War constitutes the major event in Italian history between the Council of Trent... more The Thirty Years' War constitutes the major event in Italian history between the Council of Trent and the French Revolution, but it is woefully understudied and the impact of hostilities on the lives and property of contemporaries remains terra incognita. This research examines not only the plundering of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza by Habsburg troops in 1636-1637, but also describes the many ways war imposed financial costs on the population, before, during and long after the fighting. Many of these costs have never been taken into consideration by historians who argue the positive net benefits of war for economic development.

Violence and its control in the Late Renaissance: an Italian model, in A Companion to the Worlds of the Renaissance, Blackwell, 2002, 139-155

This chapter constitutes a model of the process of reducing high rates of violence in both city a... more

Justice in the age of lordship: a feudal tribunal in 17th century Tuscany

Sixteenth Century Journal, 2004

The Facts of Life in rural Counter-Reformation Tuscany

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2009

Perils of Patriarchy: Review essay on family history of Early Modern Europe: Journal of Social History 1996

The article reviews three books on family life and tensions by Thomas Robisheaux (on Germany), Ja... more

The Decline of Violence in the West: from cultural to post-cultural history: review article

The English Historical Review, 2013

The Aristocracy in Arms: the duke of Parma goes to war 1635-1637

European History Quarterly, Apr 2014

When the Duke of Parma, Odoardo Farnese, summoned his noble subjects to join his army with a vie... more When the Duke of Parma, Odoardo Farnese, summoned his noble subjects to join his
army with a view to joining the French alliance against Spain in 1635, he was gratified by
a turnout of astonishingly high proportions. Not nearly enough of them had personal
experience of modern war, and so the prince appointed military nobles from much of
northern Italy to fill the cadres, alongside the French officers whose contingents on loan
from Louis XIII made up a third of the infantry. Unlike Spanish nobles, Odoardo’s
subjects were even willing to serve in the ranks, while waiting for their advancement.
The two brief campaigns turned out to be a disaster for Odoardo and his subjects. War
quickly receded from Parma’s horizon, but the experience reveals that Italy’s aristocrats
had not yet consigned their weapons to display cases.

Piacenza's "assedio alla larga" in the Thirty Years War

Nella morsa della guerra: Assedi, occupazioni militari e saccheggi in eta preindustriale, Franco Angeli, Milan, 2013, pp. 75-84, Dec 2013

La decadence rurale du Seicento italien

Les Passions d'un historien: Melanges en l'honneur de Jean-Pierre Poussou, 2010

Wartime mortality in Italy's Thirty Years War

Histoire, Economie et Societes, 2012

In praise of refeudalization: Princes and feudatories in north-central Italy from the 16th to the 18th centuries

Sociability and its discontents: civil society, social capital and their alternatives in early modern Europe, N. Eckstein & N. Terpstra eds, Turnhout, Brepols, 2009

Syllabus HIST 3000: Florence & Tuscany under the Medici Principality

This course introduces students to the neglected Granducal period of Florentine and Tuscan histor... more This course introduces students to the neglected Granducal period of Florentine and Tuscan history, from 1530 to 1737. It deals with the political, economic, religious, artistic and cultural realms over two centuries of the early modern era. An array of primary sources, drawn mostly from archival research, are introduced week by week alongside a sample of scholarly literature in English published over the last several decades.

INFANTICIDE GRADUATE BIBLIOGRAPHY Fall 2020

Most historical work on infanticide in the Western world has been rendered obsolete by advances i... more Most historical work on infanticide in the Western world has been rendered obsolete by advances in sex-ratio studies applied worldwide. By examining census materials and focusing on the relative numbers of boys and girls at the youngest ages, historians of Asia and elsewhere conclude that neo-naticide was a fairly routine form of population control. Western research has concentrated instead on single women prosecuted by tribunals, a modest fraction of all prosecuted homicides. If we study sex ratios in the West the same way we study them in Asia, it becomes obvious that neo-natal homicide by married women was anything but rare. However, the phenomenon was never uniform across society nor over time, nor was it ever directed exclusively against girls. If I had graduate students (Honours, MA or PhD) interested in the phenomenon, this would be their basic reading list.

4000 Bella Figura: Display in Baroque Italy

This reading course (3-4 articles weekly, in English and French) examines display as a distinct b... more This reading course (3-4 articles weekly, in English and French) examines display as a distinct behaviour with multiple facets, enacted by everyone in Italy from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. Its theoretical framework is ethological, before branching out into specific domains, like dress and textile culture, decor, religion, aristocratic consumption, courtly behaviour, and the production and consumption of art and spectacle.

Dalhousie Advanced Seminar in Baroque Culture in Cesky Krumlov

Instructors: Professors Gregory Hanlon and Estelle Joubert. This course offers its students a sur... more Instructors: Professors Gregory Hanlon and Estelle Joubert. This course offers its students a survey of key aspects of seventeenth and eighteenth-century European history and society along with a first-hand view of some of the most important aspects of Baroque style and material culture. The class introduces students to the socio-political conditions that led to the birth of Baroque civilization before entering into an exploration of the court life of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe. It then examines the cultural and artistic forms most characteristic of this period, with particular emphasis on theatre history, music history, and on the role of the " theatrical " and " musical " in the Baroque arts. As the course proceeds, students will have an opportunity to consider the connections between course material and the evidence of Baroque culture to be found in the Castle Theatre's machinery, its stock of original scenery and props, and its collection of historical costumes, as well as to witness an experimental Baroque opera performance. Finally, the course will include visits to Prague and other sites of interest to add to students' understanding of the Baroque and its legacy to subsequent periods.

HIST 3040: Culture & Behaviour in Early Modern France

This upper-year course uses Ancien Regime France, 1550-1780 as a framework to teach undergraduate... more This upper-year course uses Ancien Regime France, 1550-1780 as a framework to teach undergraduate students the wide variety of primary sources available to historians, and the methods and pitfalls of using them. It also introduces them to empirical logic for historians and the common fallacies encountered in the literature. No French required.

Civilization of Baroque Italy 1550-1650

This course introduces students to a broad range of situations and processes unfolding over the e... more

War and Society in Early Modern Europe 1550-1750

Introductory course to the phenomenon of warfare and the populations supporting and enduring it o... more Introductory course to the phenomenon of warfare and the populations supporting and enduring it over two centuries. Ranging from Spain to Ottoman Turkey, the course provides a broad chronological framework, into which it inserts the principal themes. Illustrated lectures are combined with dozens of archival and literary sources, while weekly readings underscore the manner in which research was conducted by the authors.

Prelates to Primates: from Italian history to the Behavioural Sciences

This upper-level seminar class alternates studies in the social and behavioural history of early ... more This upper-level seminar class alternates studies in the social and behavioural history of early modern Italy, and readings taken from a wide variety of social and behavioural sciences, from psychology to anthropology to human and primate ethology, in order to give human behaviour its larger context over time and place. Themes range from Governance (both hierarchy and participation) to Sociability, Economic Co-operation, Competition, Deviance, Sexuality, Reproduction, Religion, War and combat to Beauty and Art. The historical and scientific writings are buttressed with archival documents drawn from my research in Tuscany and Emilia.

Battaglie. L’evento, l’individuo, la memoria (edited by Alessandro Buono and Gianclaudio Civale)

by Alessandro Buono, Gianclaudio Civale, Gregory Hanlon, and Massimo Petta

La battaglia, per lo studioso, non è l’evento vissuto che fu per i combattenti. La paura, il furo... more La battaglia, per lo studioso, non è l’evento vissuto che fu per i combattenti. La paura, il furore, la sofferenza, il massacro e l’atroce materialità dell’uccisione sono spesso banditi da narrazioni che tentano di eludere l’insondabile ed esorcizzare l’intollerabile: una sorta di pudore nei confronti della violenza vissuta che, del resto, è proprio degli stessi combattenti, i quali, tornati a casa, il più delle volte tentano di dimenticare o rifiutano di verbalizzare gli aspetti più inconfessabili della loro esperienza.
L’evento bellico, in questo lavoro, è stato sottoposto a un’analisi che si articola a partire da tre differenti prospettive. In primo luogo, la battaglia appare come occasione per il manifestarsi di tendenze e congiunture che attraversano la storia e che spesso sorpassano l’esistenza degli uomini, come momento rivelatore di fratture e discontinuità. I saggi inseriti nella seconda parte del volume pongono al centro del loro interesse la condotta della guerra, nel tentativo di restituire il vissuto dei protagonisti dello scontro dal punto di vista materiale come da quello culturale e religioso. La terza sezione del volume, infine, è dedicata alla memoria e alla rappresentazione della battaglia. L’evento è dunque esaminato nella sua proiezione e ri-significazione nel tempo, attraverso il prisma del racconto che a questo attribuisce rilevanza e dona senso, divenendone condizione d’esistenza. In questa parte, dunque, si indaga su come l’avvenimento sia «creato» a partire dalla narrazione che di questo viene diffusa sin dall’immediatezza, e sulle modalità con cui esso è continuamente manipolato e trasfigurato al fine di costruire nuove identità particolari e collettive.

INDICE DEL VOLUME

Introduzione
di Alessandro Buono e Gianclaudio Civale

Le siège de Malte (1565), coup d’arrêt de la conquête ottomane en Méditerranée occidentale
di Anne Brogini

Sources for a battle: Tornavento (22 June 1636)
di Gregory Hanlon

Demografia, sussistenza e governo dell’emergenza a Pavia durante
l’assedio del 1655
di Mario Rizzo

Ceresole (14 aprile 1544): una grande, inutile vittoria. Conitto
tra potenze e guerra di logoramento nella prima età moderna
di Michele Maria Rabà

«Non nobis Domine». Religione, disciplina e violenza nel corpo di
spedizione pontificio nella Francia della terza guerra di religione
di Gianclaudio Civale

Il racconto della battaglia. La guerra e le notizie a stampa nella Milano degli Austrias (secoli XVI-XVII)
di Alessandro Buono e Massimo Petta

La bataille de Saint-Cast (1758) après la bataille: l’événement au fltre des mémoires
di David Hopkin, Yann Lagadec e Stéphane Perréon

Abstracts

Indice dei nomi

<i>Between the Middle Ages and Modernity: Individual and Community in the Early Modern World</i> (review)

Journal of World History, 2010

Don Antonio de’ Medici e i suoi tempi

Renaissance Quarterly, 2007

EMMANUEL LEROY LADURIE — La sorcière de Jasmin

Histoire Sociale Social History, 1986