Meanwhile in the EU…

Verena Halsmayer presents her great new book Managing growth in miniature on the Solow model at the HES-ESHET joint conference in Nice @univie.ac.at #eshet2026 #eshethes2026

I'm leaving for the #eshet #hes conference in Nice, but I'm travelling with @trenitalia.bsky.social and then @sncfconnect.bsky.social . What are the chances that I'll have to sleep in Milan or Ventimiglia?

Maybe time for provenance and restitution studies to appoint their regard on switzerland...

On va vivre quelque chose de difficilement concevable : à quelques degrés près, certaines régions de France frôlent des seuils de canicule*… en plein mois de mai. 1/7

The Po plain is still the worst place

Each unhappy academic is unhappy in her own way

9 'curiosities' about 9 of May | The Declaration that changed Europe (and the world). #EuropeDay #EUHistory 🇪🇺🧵

But isn't Claude a quintessentially female and male name?

One of the worst things about italian universities is that they have something called SSD that they use to classify scientific disciplines. History of Economics, according to them, falls in a larger group called Business economics and as a historian you are constantly valued by business people.

Dear Trainlovers, what is the easiest,cheapest,shortest way to get from Florence (italy) to Nice (france), by train? There should be an easy way but @trenitalia.bsky.social has no purchasable option

I really hope that the people who designed the directions inside Bologna underground station (worst station ever anyway) will be horribly punished in their afterlife

My chapter on the transition from the International Institute of Agriculture to the FAO is now out OA in the volume edited by Pan-Montojo, Cabo, and Prieto on Agricultural Modernisation and the Green transition and you can read it here: openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/publications...

Immigration : les eurodéputés adoptent des nouvelles règles d’expulsion des sans-papiers avec une majorité de droite et d’extrême droite

You needed so many horses to just drag one cannon!

Molta retorica nel discorso di de Villepin sull'Europa, ma la proposta complessiva sembra la solita riedizione dell'Europa a più velocità, con tutti i problemi che pone

Claude's ability to make old weird printed tables into structured tabular data will save thousands of collective hours of some of the most frustrating and boring tasks in research.

CFP: "Nationalities and National Diversity in Revolutionary #Ukraine, 1917-21". University of #Vienna, 3-5 September 2026. Submission Deadline: 31 May 2026 nuru.univie.ac.at/en/news/news...

European commission discussing Buy European rules today

Greek authorities have issued an European Arrest Warrant against Norwegian human rights activist Tommy Olsen, who leads the Aegean Boat Report, supporting migrants.

On the hellish detention and deportation system built by EU countries. With quotes from the current and the former German chancellors expressing their commitment to the inhumane cruelty of this apparatus, described here in forensic detail.

🔵Inside Euronews, journalists have been increasingly alarmed about eroding editorial independence as owners multiply partnerships with state-linked entities, according to exclusive documents seen by Euractiv. ⤵️ 🔗https://eurac.tv/9Yo0

Le Parlement européen adopte définitivement deux textes-clés pour durcir la politique migratoire

Nahe der griechischen Insel Chios ist ein Schiff der Küstenwache mit einem Boot voller Migranten zusammengestoßen. Zahlreiche Menschen starben, Retter suchen mit Wärmebildkameras nach Überlebenden.

When you eat an early dinner instead of lunch or a late lunch instead of dinner, is it "lunner" or "dinch"?

what do we talk about when we talk about energy? my answer features (among many others) adorno, bogdanov, and the austrian communist wilhelm frank, who experimented with national exergy balances in the 1950s. out april 2026.

A reminder about our online free book talk with @kbruisch.bsky.social tomorrow! Join us to hear about Burning Swamps. #envhist #envhum

A great sentence on the limited impact of statistics on government: "Statistics is a science that must constantly fight for its right to exist: the reason for this lies in the aversion we feel in everyday life to being governed by theory, 1/2

I am thinking a lot about the category of zombie-regimes: regimes that rely on very little consensus, but in return maintain a very strong capacity for repression and the unity necessary to use it. Without consensus, the regime is paralyzed, but it is impossible to remove it. 1/3

Uno dei leader dell'AfD, dice che la repubblica federale è una delle forme statuali della Germania e viene usata contro il futuro dei tedeschi. Sembra un nazista che parla della repubblica di Weimar

"Die gegenwärtige Staatlichkeit [also die Bundesrepublik] wird offenkundig zum Kampf gegen eine deutsche Zukunft missbraucht." - Björn Höcke, 22.1.2026

Look who Italian Deputy PM Salvini has been hosting in his Ministerial office.

Ukrainian nationals serving sentences in Ukrainian prisons seized by Russian forces are being flagged in the EU’s Schengen Information System as potential threats to public order and internal security.

Die fette Jahren sind vorbei

Law professor sues Germany for 'illegal' border controls

The University of Basel has just advertised three positions in my project on treason, disloyalty, and the defense of democracy in interwar Czechoslovakia. If you know any students and junior scholars interested in working on interwar Czechoslovakia, please encourage them to apply!

🔔The University of Vienna invites applications for at least 40 funded doctoral positions across the Social Sciences & Humanities to do your own research project and choose your preferred supervisor. ❗Application deadline: March 2, 2026 👇Check eligibility here: careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/p...

How should EU scholars prepare to avoid losing their files in case the US excludes us from their internet services (including cloud, emails etc.) after the invasion of Greenland? Should I simply download everything I have on onedrive, dropbox, gdrive?

The historian Vincent Lemire, who has lived in Israel, worked with numerous Israeli colleagues, held an ERC on the history of Jerusalem and has published extensively on this topic has been barred from entry to Israel for alleged Anti-Zionist views. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

The so-called “Venezuela majority” (EPP + ECR + Patriots for Europe + ESN) is no longer an anomaly. In December it was decisive on: • another vote on the deforestation law • key parts of the “simplification” agenda • the new EU list of safe countries of origin

For a course, I had to use McNeill's Webs of Humankind.I find it a terribly confusing book, with no sense of priorities.The bits on ww1 and the interwar period are particularly bad, McNeill even acritically repeats propaganda claims.The students, as I can see from their exams, are equally confused.

Excellent résumé ! "L’euro numérique n’a rien de spectaculaire. Et pourtant, il est au cœur d’un choix fondamental : voulons-nous que le paiement reste un service public, sûr, transparent et démocratiquement contrôlé ? Ou acceptons-nous qu’il soit entièrement abandonné à des intérêts privés ? "

Deadline extended, January 16

For the JHI Blog’s forum on political economy, Ibanca Anand recounts how midcentury US growth economists' influential models of "multi-factor productivity" in agriculture systematically occluded the role of labor and supported narrow, warped criteria of economic health.

And so with a wimper, the EU scraps the ban on internal-combustion engines from 2035. The new rules are an incomprehensible fudge that only lobbyists will understand. Saying "the climate matters, here is something tangible we are doing about it" was a big deal. Whatever this is, it's a little sad.

Every new hire at an Italian university has to follow courses on workplace safety. they are awful. the content is absurd (a sort of long history of Italy's laws on work safety), and the way the course is administered is even worse: endless videos summarizing the relevant laws... why?!

In a new piece for the JHI forum on political economy, Federico D’Onofrio discusses the rise of a class of "agricultural economists" as part of a broader trend intersecting with and going beyond "rural modernism" in twentieth-century Europe. @fdonoff.bsky.social

Call for Applications — DEADLINE: JANUARY 31, 2026 Fourth Lake Como Summer School in Philosophy of Economics Como, Italy, 8–12 June 2026 Sponsored by INEM, U. of Insubria, and U. of Milan Full information at: phileco4.lakecomoschool.org phileco4.lakecomoschool.org/application/

And, of course, both @ec.europa.eu and @europarl.europa.eu are still creating content for Elon Musk's site. Rule of thumb for representatives of democratic institutions: If you wouldn't give an interview to an ultranationalist far-right newspaper, you shouldn't be on X either.