essay
Premodern and modern constructions of population regimes
images of contemporary iceland : everyday lives and global contexts • Iowa City • Published In 1996 • Pages: 149-170
By: Vasey, Daniel E..
Abstract
This essay examines the popular image of Iceland's population struggling to survive in an inhospitable environment. The author probes the demographic substance behind this 'myth', with particular emphasis on the idea that Iceland's premodern (i.e., all periods before the last half of the nineteenth century) mortality rates were exceptionally high; a hypothesis whch Varsey shows to be false. Much of the demographic data presented in this study regarding births, marriages, deaths, and disease, comes from the parish registers that survive in the collection of the Genealogical Society of Utah, which are microfilm copies made in 1953 from the original registers in the Icelandic National Archives. These registers also provide the several selected censuses appearing in this document.
- HRAF PubDate
- 2004
- Region
- Europe
- Sub Region
- Scandinavia
- Document Type
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- Analyst
- John Beierle ; 2002
- Field Date
- 1969-1970 (summers)
- Coverage Date
- sixteenth-nineteenth centuries
- Coverage Place
- Iceland
- Notes
- Daniel E. Vasey
- For bibliographical references see document 20:[Gísli Pálsson and E. Paul Durrenberger]
- LCCN
- 9535078
- LCSH
- Icelanders