🚨 The Economist has been telling you for years that polygamy causes civil war by locking men out of marriage. A new article with @rebeccasear.bsky.social and @anthrolog.bsky.social explains that the demography of marriage markets doesn't actually work that way. 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I'm submitting my PhD dissertation today, with the defence scheduled in early December. Long years of work, but proud of the outcome and excited to develop it further. Thought I'd share the first few pages of the front matter:

UNTIL IT'S DONE, Ep. 2 When the Brownsville Clinic opened in 1916, it was the first birth control center in America. Its very existence felt impossible. For young women, it was a lifeline. 109 years later, the Clinic is long closed—but Brownsville mothers are still struggling.

Facebook reminds me that a year ago I started a project of scanning the journals of the Central African Historical Association, based at the University of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, which ran from 1970 to the early 1980s. I have uploaded my scans to Dropbox here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ruzbp...

Under-5 diarrhoeal disease death rates in South Africa during the 70s and 80s for coloured (mixed-race), indian and white race groups (apartheid state did not collect complete data for the black majority). The seasonality and heightened rates for the coloured population are quite shocking.

When was the last time you've listened to Graceland. You might want to listen to Graceland again. It's really good.

David Byrne came to my band’s show at a gay bar in Bed-Stuy and sang This Must Be The Place with us and I still haven’t processed it

A striking visualisation of vaccine impact: Cape Town whooping cough deaths plummeted after DP (diphtheria and pertussis [whooping cough]) vaccine introduction (1950). Also reveals stark racial health disparities in South Africa, particularly in the first half of the 20th century.

The shipwreck uncovered in Sanday, #Orkney last year has been identified as HMS Hind, later the Earl of Chatham which was wrecked in the Bay of Lopness in 1788. More than 230 years buried in the seabed, before being released by a storm in 2024. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

That's the post !

Clioguesser: guess the year based on a political map, ranging from 1000 BCE to 2024 CE. I am 15th on the leaderboard ;) clioguesser.azurewebsites.net/leaderboard

Congratulations to @nickfitzhenry.bsky.social and Mina Ishizu for receiving the 2025 #LSE Class #Teaching Awards 🧑‍🏫🥳 info.lse.ac.uk/staff/educat... #econhist #education

A video I made for a job interview summarising my PhD work and its relevance to students of economics. youtu.be/r4U07e00oY0?...

I’ve long used FiveThirtyEight’s interactive “Hack Your Way To Scientific Glory” to illustrate the idea of p-hacking when I teach statistics. But ABC/Disney killed the site earlier this month :( So I made my own with #rstats and Observable and #QuartoPub ! stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/

This reminds me of an Archbishop Desmond Tutu quote I hold close to my heart.

Last week, we took our students on a tour of the National Gallery, teaching the history of economic and demographic change through art. 🖼️🎨🧵

TB is a disease of poverty A new RCT in @thelancetinfdis.bsky.social shows that pre-test & post-test TB counseling + conditional cash transfers significantly improved treatment outcomes in South Africa. The intervention cut unsuccessful TB outcomes nearly in half! www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

CFP: Workshop on Health Transitions in the Global South CFP Deadline 3 February 2025 Workshop 9-10 June 2025 at LSE Sponsored by the LSE Historical Economic Demography Group www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-His...

My round for our Christmas dinner party quiz: 🎄Economic Christory 🎄

Did someone try to Hot Frosty Adam Smith?

1/5 Jonathan Guthrie claims in his @ft article that “It’s bananas to regard art as an investment”. A few thoughts from someone researching art as an investment - a thread🧵 www.ft.com/content/daf9...

Linked 🇨🇦 census data show big regional differences in intergenerational mobility 1871-1901 & substantial improvement for Quebec over the 20th century. Structural change but not human capital variation helps to explain spatial differences in mobility. New working paper from Minns, Summerfield et al!

I created a starter pack of LSE Economic History people on Bluesky. Let me know if I have missed you! go.bsky.app/BJSugbh

I've put together my personal website — rather proud of these (GPT-generated) icons for each of my research projects! www.nicholasfitzhenry.co.uk

I've been at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa today presenting new research. Thanks to Giuliana Freschi, Giacamo Gabbuti and Alessandro Nuvolari for inviting me. I use daily fog events in turn-of-the-century London to measure the short- and long-run health costs of pollution for children.

In my undergrad teaching, a persistent task is getting students to write better essays. I am putting together some slides on how to answer essay questions that ask students to evaluate causal questions (e.g., "Did geographic luck cause the Rise of the West?".) Just put together this diagram.

Charles Butcher (NTNU) presenting the LEGACIES project. Capturing the presence of pre-colonial states and their potential influence on post-colonial democratization.

I'm presenting some excess mortality methods work from my PhD at the Office of National Statistics tomorrow! Email / DM me if you want a link to join online, and don't mind thinking about more ghosts on Halloween 👻🎃

William Kentridge has a new series on Mubi where he mostly complains about himself to himself and us and it's GLORIOUS

Delighted to be in Sardinia to present at the IUSSP Workshop ‘Tuberculosis: The White Death as a Social Disease’

At the Broadstreet Pump

Heartbreaking to see the Daily Maverick is under such finanical strain and is downsizing its staff. Being out of the country, the DM has been the most reliable source of news and insight from home.

It's extremely important that everyone know the best spooky show on tv, FROM, is back today for season three www.imdb.com/title/tt9813...

📢 Did smallpox cause stillbirths in the past? Our study of Swedish data (1780–1839) reveals surprising findings about the impact of smallpox and the role of vaccination. 🧵👇 Article forthcoming at Population Studies: doi.org/10.1080/0032...

Fantastic opening afternoon of #BSPS2024 in beautiful Bath. Great plenary by @heidicolleran.bsky.social on the problematic concept of natural fertility, and excellent presentations in the first #HistoricalDemography session and in health and mortality (incl @nickfitzhenry.bsky.social)

Alina Pelikh giving a lovely tribute to Anne Shepherd at the start of her Early Career Award plenary, on the life course trajectories of young people in the UK; an award now named after Anne to recognise her immense contributions to demography in the UK ❤️

love you, ted chiang.

📣Free open access PDF📣 Chapter 1 of the great Nancy Krieger's book Epidemiology and the people's health second edition (2024) "Does Epidemiologic Theory Exist? On Science, Data, and Explaining Disease Distribution" #HealthInequalities #academicsky #episky academic.oup.com/book/56171/c...