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Copyright of Historische Zeitschrift is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Author-supplied Abstracts.)

Limestone, a resource that was needed to smelt iron ore and to produce steel, became an object of competition between industrialists of the Ruhr around 1900. The making and transformation of spatial relations was crucial to the process of gaining exclusive access to the resource. First, images of the underground terrain, namely the identification and delineation of limestone deposits, were variable and subject to negotiation - albeit bound to physical space through procedures of surveying and chemical analysis. Second, the changing structure of real-estate property constituted new spatial relations. As limestone companies bought up property from local farmers, the social implications of land ownership slowly eroded. Instead, the spatial structure of property was reorganized around safeguarding an exclusive and unrestricted access to limestone deposits. Third, the companies' interventions transformed spatial relations by realigning infrastructures and restricting potentially conflicting uses of land. In the end, they also transformed much of the physical space by expanding quarries in unprecedented dimensions. All these processes were driven and shaped in a highly competitive setting in which not only competing companies but also the local populace gained decisive influence. The aim of this case study is to show that space was not a fixed 'container' in which companies and locals pursued their economic interests. Rather, spatial relations were brought about, and hence made, amid the competition for the resource as these relations became the precondition for resource extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A table of contents for the May 2016 issue of the economic history periodical "Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte" is presented on topics including competition in the limestone mining industry around the turn of the 20th century, mining in Asbestos, Canada, and mining in the topographic description of the early modern period. Publisher information for the periodical is presented along with a list of editors.

The article presents a commentary on several articles, also published in this issue of the journal, about socioeconomic aspects of Jewish-Christian relations in Europe in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. The author highlights the themes of Christian-Jewish competition and cooperation in the context of economic crises and famines, anti-Jewish propaganda and antisemitic stereotypes, and the role of Jews in the history of state formation in Europe. Brief, more general comments on the historiography of economic history are also offered.

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Sozialreform is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)