Ellen Smith – författare

This four-volume collection contextualises primary sources related to nineteenth-century communications, including periodical articles, institutional and administrative records, material artefacts, and manuscript material such as correspondence, minutes, and memoirs. This resource contributes to knowledge in its own right as well as stimulates and facilitates future investigations, by students, academics, and other researchers, into the topic of the history of communications. The collections contributes to improving understandings of how nineteenth-century, especially Victorian, communication media, infrastructure, and technology have shaped the globalised, networked world in which we live today.The collection draws on materials held in archives across Britain as well as internationally. Following a broad chronology within each volume, the collection gathers sources dating from the period between 1780 and 1918. It takes for its starting point John Palmer’s proposal for a new mail coach design and ends with the demise of universal penny postage in 1918. The majority of sources, however, date from the years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the beginning of the First World War in 1914.

This volume focuses on the development of mail services between ca. 1780 and 1860. It takes as its starting point John Palmer’s proposal to reform the mail coach system in the 1780s. As part of this volume, the following themes and subjects are covered: Mail services prior to the introduction of the penny post, including the rise and fall of the mail coach; correspondence and surveillance during the Napoleonic wars; the emergence of local penny posts; and debates about the franking privileges of Members of Parliament. Campaigns for and against the introduction of Rowland Hill’s scheme for penny postage between 1837 and 1840. Cultural responses to, and repercussions of, the introduction of the penny post in 1840. The 1844 letter opening scandal. The development of mail infrastructure from 1840 onward, including the development of rural post routes and the use of the railways for the conveyance of the mail.

This volume foregrounds the close, and mutually informing, relationships between mediated communication and technological innovation during the nineteenth century. It draws attention to the fact that communication was a driver of innovation, but also considers how communication practices adapted to new media and technologies. The following themes and subjects are covered: The development of the telegraph, from the semaphore in the late eighteenth century to the wireless in the late nineteenth. Rhe shift from privately owned to nationalised telegraph infrastructure and services. Mail trains, travelling post offices, and accelerated public communication. The development of and cultural responses to steam-packet technologies and infrastructures, and accelerated international communication. The development of and cultural responses to submarine and transoceanic telegraphy. The beginnings of telephony.

This volume illuminates some of the manifold ways in which Britain’s communication infrastructure affected everyday life in nineteenth-century Britain. Accordingly, it highlights socio-economic, cultural, and material repercussions of selected aspects of mediated communication. It covers: The rise and role of the communication worker and the Post Office’s status as Britain’s largest employer as well as pioneering employer of women. The campaigns surrounding Sunday labour. The connections between new leisure opportunities and activities and new media of communication such as the postcard. Concerns about morally suspect uses of new media and technologies of communication, e.g. the use of the telegraph for gambling.The presence of changing communication practices in material culture, e.g. the increasing popularity of greeting cards and new types of stationery.

This volume pays particular attention to Britain’s embeddedness—and role in shaping—a rapidly expanding global communications network. In particular, it reflects the links between communications and Britain’s imperial and colonial projects. It covers:The development of imperial communication routes and infrastructures as well as, in the late nineteenth-century, the introduction of imperial penny postageThe ramifications of new technologies and media of communication for warfare and diplomacy between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of the First World WarEmigrants’ correspondenceThe domestic significance of communication infrastructure in relation to British national identityThe 1874 establishment of the Union Postale Universelle and related initiatives to globalise communications

The human resources crisis in the health sector has been gathering attention on the global stage. To date, however, most of this attention has focused on shortages of health human resources (HRH) at the national level. At least as important are problems at the sub-national level. Massive geographic and skill mix imbalances are reflected in the perilous undersupply of HRH in most rural areas. Virtually all Sub-Saharan African countries suffer from significant geographic imbalances. Very little substantive information or documentation exists on the problem. Even less is known about the lessons from policies aimed at addressing urban-rural human resource imbalances, let alone experiences of Sub-Saharan Africa countries, with such policies. There also appears to be a disconnect between the objectives and efforts of policymakers on the one hand and the functioning of national health labor markets and labor market behavior on the other hand. This disconnect hinders policy effectiveness and the efficient utilization of resources intended to narrow urban-rural inequities.In Sub-Saharan Africa government policies, often limited to the management of public sector vacancies, appear to be elaborated, prescribed, and implemented independently of labor market considerations. Partly as a result, they are unable to effectively address urban-rural imbalances, which are an outcome of labor market dynamics. This report discusses and analyzes labor market dynamics and outcomes (including unemployment, worker shortages, and urban-rural imbalances of categories of health workers) from a labor economics perspective. It then use insights from this perspective as a basis for elaborating policy options that incorporate the underlying labor market forces. The goal of the study is to address undesirable outcomes (including urban-rural HRH imbalances) more effectively. The book is thus suitable for researchers, policy analysts and policy makers with an interest in understanding and improving the allocation of human resources for health in the developing world.

States of danger and deceit places key films (Z (1969), The Mattei Affair (1972), State of Siege (1972), The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975), Illustrious Corpses (1976)) and filmmakers (Costa-Gavras, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, Volker Schlöndorff) from across Europe into their historical, political and social contexts before considering the ways they have impacted upon politically engaged filmmakers since. Presented in a dossier format, made up of shorter engaging pieces, this volume offers a series of contextualisations and detailed explorations of significant examples of the political thriller from across Europe.