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A partir d’un matériau composé d’archives, d’ouvrages spécialisés, de littérature grise et d’entretiens, cette thèse explore les transformations des manières de faire et de concevoir l’économie ferroviaire en France. Notre analyse socio-historique met au jour les recompositions de la politique du rail et l’évolution des logiques de gestion des compagnies ferroviaires sur le moyen et le long terme. Tandis que, dans les années 1820-1830, le développement des chemins de fer est laissé à l’initiative des entrepreneurs privés, la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle est marquée par un engagement progressif de l’Etat dans le secteur, qui finance et encadre l’exploitation de vastes réseaux organisés en monopoles régionaux. La nationalisation des chemins de fer en 1938 et la politique de planification des transports de la période d’après-guerre constituent l’apogée de ce processus d’étatisation. Le dernier demi-siècle se caractérise au contraire par une érosion de la conception traditionnelle du service public et par une intensification de la régulation marchande, dont la récente libéralisation du rail et la nouvelle politique commerciale de la SNCF sont les signes les plus manifestes. Les transformations du rail renvoient à l’évolution des catégories de pensée et d’action dominantes au sein du champ politico-administratif, aux rapports de force sociaux dans les entreprises ferroviaires, ainsi qu’aux propriétés matérielles des chemins de fer en comparaison de celles des autres techniques de transport existantes. Ensemble, ces trois dimensions définissent l’espace des possibles et des probables de l’économie ferroviaire. / Based on a material composed of archives, specialized books, grey literature and interviews, this thesis explores the transformations of the process of making and thinking the railway economy in France. Our socio-historical analysis reveals the rearrangements of the rail policy and the evolution of the company’s management strategy in the medium and the long term. While during the 1820’s-1830’s the growth of railways is left to the discretion of private entrepreneurs, starting from the mid-19th century the state controls the sector, financing the expanding of the network and strongly shaping large regional monopolies. The nationalisation of the French railways in 1938 and the transport planning policy after World War II represent the climax of the state control. The last half-century challenges the traditional definition of public service in the sector and gives rise to a more market-oriented regulation, symbolised by the opening to competition of the railway market and the new trade policy of the state-owned company SNCF. Changes in the sector are driven by the transformation of mindsets and practices within the “state field”, the balance of power in the rail companies, as well as the material properties and benefits of railways as compared to other existing means of transport. These three dimensions altogether define the space for possible and probable of the rail economy.

The research presented in this thesis investigates how the ‘Baby Boomer generation’ has become constructed as a social problem in Britain. I begin by outlining the theoretical orientation of the research, which is grounded in Mannheim’s understanding that the problem of generations is to do with the interaction between generational location and wider social forces. The subsequent chapters present the results of a qualitative media analysis of the Baby Boomer problem, using a sample of British national newspaper articles published between 1986 and 2011 to examine the development of a cultural script. These chapters outline, first, the main features of the Baby Boomer problem as it is currently presented, before moving on to analyse how the cultural script has, over time, constructed the Boomer generation in two main ways: as an economic problem, and as a cultural problem. My findings indicate that both the attributes of the Baby Boomer generation, and the importance attached to generation as a political or social category, have changed over time, and are affected by wider political, social, and cultural shifts. This has a number of implications for how we think about the construction of the problem of generations in the present day.

Castration has a long temporal and geographical span. Its origins are unclear, but likely lie in the Ancient Near East around the time of the Secondary Products Revolution and the increase in social complexity of proto-urban societies. Due to the unique social and gender roles created by castrates’ ambiguous sexual state, human castrates were used heavily in strongly hierarchical social structures such as imperial and religious institutions, and were often close to the ruler of an imperial society. This privileged position, though often occupied by slaves, gave castrates enormous power to affect governmental decisions. This often aroused the jealousy and hatred of intact elite males, who were not afforded as open access to the ruler and virulently condemned castrates in historical documents. These attitudes were passed down to the scholars and doctors who began to study castration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, affecting the manner in which castration was studied. Osteometric and anthropometric examinations of castrates were carried out during this period, but the two World Wars and a shift in focus meant that castrate bodies were not studied for nearly eighty years. Recent interest in gender and sexuality in the past has revived interest in castration as a topic, but few studies of castrate remains have occurred. As large numbers of castrates are referenced in historical documents, the lack of castrate skeletons may be due to a lack of recognition of the physical effects of castration on the skeleton. The synthesis and generation of methods for more accurate identification of castrate skeletons was undertaken and the results are presented here to improve the ability to identify castrate skeletons within the archaeological record.