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This article examines relationships between historical administrative systems and civil service politicization across Europe. I argue that to appreciate when and how history matters, we need to consider public service bargains struck between politicians and senior bureaucrats. Doing so complicates the relationship between historical and current administrative systems: a bureaucratic, as opposed to patrimonial, 18th-century state infrastructure is necessary for the depoliticization of ministerial bureaucracies in present-day Western Europe. However, the relationship does not hold in East-Central Europe since administrative histories are tumultuous and fractured. Combining data from across the European continent, I provide evidence in support of these propositions. Points for practitioners This article addresses policymakers dealing with reforms of personnel policy regimes at the centre of government. It considers the importance of history for politically attractive reforms, as well as the limits of this importance. I argue that 18th-century state infrastructures shape the extent to which political appointments are politically attractive tools for administrative control. I show that only in countries that feature a bureaucratic, as opposed to patrimonial, 18th-century infrastructure are ministerial top management occupied by a permanent, as opposed to politically appointed, staff. However, in East-Central Europe, a ruptured administrative history ensures that the distant past does not similarly shape the extent of political appointments.

Europe at the millennium -- Agriculture and rural life -- Trade 1000-1350 -- Cities, guilds, and political economy -- Economic and social thought -- The great hunger and the big death -- The calamitous fourteenth century -- Technology and consumerism -- War and social unrest -- Fifteenth century portraits

"In A History of Population Health Johan P. Mackenbach offers a broad-sweeping study of the spectacular changes in people's health in Europe since the early 18th century. Most of the 40 specific diseases covered in this book show a fascinating pattern of 'rise-and-fall', with large differences in timing between countries. Using a unique collection of historical data and bringing together insights from demography, economics, sociology, political science, medicine, epidemiology and general history, it shows that these changes and variations did not occur spontaneously, but were mostly man-made. Throughout European history, changes in health and longevity were therefore closely related to economic, social, and political conditions, with public health and medical care both making important contributions to population health improvement"--

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Notes on Contributors -- General Editors' Preface -- 1 Resources of the City: Towards a European Urban Environmental History -- 2 A Metabolic Approach to the City: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Paris -- 3 Urban Horses and Changing City-Hinterland Relationships in the United States -- 4 'Returning to Nature': Vacation and Life Style in the Montréal Region -- 5 Citizens in Pursuit of Nature: Gardens, Allotments and Private Space in European Cities, 1850-2000 -- 6 Sustainable Naples: The Disappearance of Nature as Resource -- 7 The Struggle for Urban Space: Nantes and Clermont-Ferrand, 1830-1930 -- 8 Sanitate Crescamus: Water Supply, Sewage Disposal and Environmental Values in a Victorian Suburb -- 9 Resource Management and Environmental Transformations. Water Incorporation at the Time of Industrialization: Milan, 1880-1940 -- 10 Constructing Urban Infrastructure for Multiple Resource Management: Sewerage Systems in the Industrialization of the Rhineland, Germany -- 11 Towards the Socialist Sanitary City: Urban Water Problems in East German New Towns, 1945-1970 -- 12 Experts and Water Quality in Paris in 1870 -- 13 Noise Abatement and the Search for Quiet Space in the Modern City -- 14 Environmental Justice, History and the City: The United States and Britain, 1970-2000 -- 15 'In Stadt und Land': Differences and Convergences between Urban and Local Environmentalism in West Germany, 1950-1980 -- 16 Path Dependence and Urban History: Is a Marriage Possible? -- Index.

The past year has seen a much higher political pro file for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sus tained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60% of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission`s pro posals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year`s WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to € 12 per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum wage trailblazer.