Repetition is constitutive of human life. Both the species and the individual develop through repetition. Unlike simple recall, repetition is permeated by the past and the present and is oriented toward the future. Repetition of central actions and events plays an important role in the lives of individuals and the life of society. It helps to create meaning and memory. Because repetition is a central aspect of human life, it plays a role in all social and cultural spheres. It is important for several branches of the humanities and social studies. This book presents studies of an array of repetitive phenomena and to show that repetition analysis is opening up a new field of study within single disciplines and interdisciplinary research. Recommended for scholars of literature, music, culture, and communication.

Linking individuals across historical datasets relies on information such as name and age that is both non-unique and prone to enumeration and transcription errors. These errors make it impossible to find the correct match with certainty. In the first part of the paper, we suggest a fully automated probabilistic method for linking historical datasets that enables researchers to create samples at the frontier of minimizing type I (false positives) and type II (false negatives) errors. The first step guides researchers in the choice of which varia-bles to use for linking. The second step uses the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm, astandard tool in statistics, to compute the probability that each two records correspond to the same individual. The third step suggests how to use these estimated probabilities to choose which records to use in the analysis. In the second part of the paper, we apply the method to link historical population censuses in the US and Norway, and use these samples to estimate measures of intergenerational occupational mobility. The estimates using our method are remarkably similar to the ones using IPUMS’, which relies on hand linking tocreate a training sample. We created an R code and a Stata command that implement this method.

An Economist Best Book of the Year
Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award (History)

Separating historical fact from fantasy, an acclaimed historian retells the story of Kishinev, a riot that transformed the course of twentieth-century Jewish history.

So shattering were the aftereffects of Kishinev, the rampage that broke out in late-Tsarist Russia in April 1903, that one historian remarked that it was “nothing less than a prototype for the Holocaust itself.” In three days of violence, 49 Jews were killed and 600 raped or wounded, while more than 1,000 Jewish-owned houses and stores were ransacked and destroyed. Recounted in lurid detail by newspapers throughout the Western world, and covered sensationally by America’s Hearst press, the pre-Easter attacks seized the imagination of an international public, quickly becoming the prototype for what would become known as a “pogrom,” and providing the impetus for efforts as varied as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the NAACP. Using new evidence culled from Russia, Israel, and Europe, distinguished historian Steven J. Zipperstein’s wide-ranging book brings historical insight and clarity to a much-misunderstood event that would do so much to transform twentieth-century Jewish life and beyond. 40 illustrations.

Even as Notre Dame Cathedral was burning, pundits such as Ben Shapiro and Katie Hopkins began to mourn it as a “monument to Western civilization … built on the Judeo-Christian heritage” — describing the fire as symbolic of a “Judeo-Christian annihilation.” The president of Poland immediately called for rebuilding the cathedral as a symbolic reconstruction of Europe on its “real, historical, Judeo-Christian foundation.” As critics responded, the debate heated up, leading to both religious and historical confusion. So what is the “Judeo-Christian tradition”?