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In the 1960s and 1970s, political debates in East Central Europe and Western Europe were influenced by the idea of convergence between the capitalist and the socialist systems that dominated Europe. After 1989, the idea of convergence was replaced by ideas that revolved around the one-sided adaptation of “Europeanization" and “transformation". Despite the great political and economic success of the transformation process, the concept of an “ever closer European Union" has lost its attractiveness in East Central Europe. Drawing on current political and cultural debates in East Central Europe, the paper argues that it is the asymmetrical nature of the transformation and the process of Europeanization that is causing new divergences in Europe today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligence offices emerged in European urban centers beginning in the seventeenth century. Most were privately run institutions and procured work, goods, real estate, and capital. They registered requests in protocol ledgers and sometimes published them in advertising papers. The registration procedures that intelligence offices imposed on job seekers contributed to surveillance and disciplinary power. The data stored by information offices were coveted by the authorities, and in some cases, the existence of intelligence offices inspired far-reaching fantasies of control that aimed to transform them into registration or credit information offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the situation, dilemmas, and political activities of Arab exiles and students in Germany between 1933 and 1945. The author discusses the question of individual moral culpability, describes the pressures and exploitation experienced by Arabs in National Socialist Germany, and presents the consequences of their stay in Germany for their later lives, careers, and thinking. The Egyptian journalist and political activist, Husni al-Urabi, is mentioned, along with Arab students in Berlin.

Most early modern instances of migration are connected to the emergence of the modern state, and/or to the different confessional cultures in Europe following the Reformation. Since the onset of modern times and, contrary to recent trends in migration research, early modern migrations have mainly been analyzed as a challenge to the order and stability of early modern society. Migrants were furthermore looked upon as part of somewhat “given" groups (for instance “the" Huguenots, Salzburgers etc.) defined by geographical, ethnic, or religious characteristics. The paper argues for a more thorough analysis of the historical dimension of such presuppositions, and challenges older dichotomies in research of early modern migrations. It advocates a view based on the communicational opportunities and individual options of migrants within the contemporary political and confessional frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the historical reduction of social and economic inequality in Western Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. Alleged increases of equality in the realms of housing, medical care, and education are questioned, taxation, education reform, and welfare in 20th-century Western Europe are analyzed, and information is offered on the role of socialist democratic governments in reducing the inequalities inherent in industrialized capitalist economic systems. The role of the government in increasing equality is questioned.

The article discusses a review of early modern era criminal court records from Zurich, Switzerland, that raise questions about the problems of comparing the meanings of the concepts of "rape" and "abuse" in that pre-modern period to modern times. The author notes that crimes of "sexualized violence" in the earlier era may involve different understandings of the terms applied to those crimes. She also wonders how a modern person can understand a concept of "fairness" in the former time period, given sentences that seem unjust to those living in a later time.

The article explores the history of migration in the early modern period in Europe (18th century), and the consequences this history has had on the development of the academic study of European migration. The article claims that the dichotomous and essentialist categories with which the academic study of migration has been working, are inaccurate and misleading. The latter conclusion requires an historically contextualized reconfiguration of the quintessential categories with which migration studies work. It is thus essential to explore the relationships between immigrants, communities and the management of these communities, the reasons for migration, the relationship between norm and deviation from norms, between majority and minority, and the importance of the state and of social order.