Data

Stefan Krebs uses the case of Germany to investigate maintenance and repair as a central part of automobility. The chapter will look at two sides of car repair as the need to maintain the mobility function and the practice of a hobbyist consumer activity that promised status, community and identity. It highlights four aspects that framed repair as a necessary part of car consumption: the (un-)reliability of automobile technology; the emergence of a car repair infrastructure; repair costs, which determined to a large extent whether one could afford to drive a car; and DIY repair practices.

Within the historiographical field of “political architecture”, ministerial office buildings have always been a somewhat marginal subject, undeservedly deemed of secondary importance in relation to more “representative” types of political buildings. Dwelling on the insights of the nineteenth-century essayist Bagehot and the office historians Duffy and Gardey, my contribution postulates that from the early twentieth century onward, ministerial office architecture has become an essential functional

This dissertation consists of two parts. In the first part, the focus lies on the study of trade and transport networks in the Gaulish and German provinces during the Roman Empire based on inscriptions. Different approaches are used to tackle this topic, e.g. networks between different people and families, organisations and cities. The results show that networks between merchants or merchant families likely existed with the aim of securing and improving one’s own position in the business world.

Belgian historical research concerning the repression of collaboration after the Second World War, has mostly overlooked the East Cantons. This mostly German-speaking region only became a part of Belgium in 1920, as a consequence of the treaty of Versailles. The integration of these populations turned out to be a very complicated process. In 1940, Nazi-Germany did not only occupy the East Cantons like the rest of Belgium, but annexed them back into the Third Reich.

As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas.

The paper looks at a global, non-commercial organization that not only steered worldwide innovation in communication infrastructure but also made efforts to define ethical standards for media use and mass communication. Established after the Second World War, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ran campaigns in the late 1940s to remove information barriers and foster the free flow of information throughout the world.