Human Development and Its Outliers: A Global Microhistory

 

This project envisions a broad evaluation of 20th century models of human development over the life course (ontogenesis, human constitution), including socialist and capitalist conceptions across both Eastern and Western Europe. It asks how these models of the human life course were developed, including what stages of development are defined, and what ‘proper’ paths each model of development dictates along these stages. Taking into consideration the social and economic environments in which these models were developed, it further evaluates how ‘outliers’ - i.e., individuals differing from the median of human development because of age, disability, physical, or mental capacity - have been incorporated into or excluded from these different models. Finally, it asks how different models may have influenced each other over the course the 20th century and what influence these models - and their interactions - have had on conceptions and programmes of social welfare.

 

The Amsterdam Health & Disease Database 1854-1940

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This project concerns the construction of a truly exceptional dataset: a database on individual causes of death for the entire population of Amsterdam for the period 1854-1940. This database includes the causes of death of all individuals who died within the city of Amsterdam in the span of almost 100 years. Just imagine that we can reconstruct the health and disease patterns for all 700.000 individuals who lived and died in this period! It will become possible to map and reconstruct the entire spatio-temporal history of death, disease, but also of medical practice in the Dutch capital as it evolved over those 100 years.

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This project is carried out as a crowdsourcing project through the Velehanden.nl website. See: www.velehanden.nl. Do you want to be part of this exciting enterprise?  Join us on Velehanden.nl!

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The dataset is now complete! Check us on Facebook