ABSTRACT
In 1890, Europe dominated the world economy. Its population was still predominantly rural, but industrialization was proceeding rapidly. Political, social and economic frameworks seemed stable, although there was some concern among elites that worker organizations, expanding socialist parties and a growing population might threaten their control. The estimated population of Europe (including Russia) was 274 million in 1850, 423 million in 1900, and nearly 600 million in 1950. In some areas the rate of growth slowed towards 1900, and more noticeably after 1919. More babies were surviving to five years; life expectancy was improving. In France, average life expectancy at birth rose from 47 in 1900 to 60 in 1940. More reliable supplies of food might have helped. Improved water supply and sanitation reduced the virulence of waterborne diseases such as cholera, and some medical advances, particularly smallpox vaccination and the care of TB sufferers, also assisted. However, apart from the measures against smallpox, such improvements came too late to explain the period of fastest growth. Research into changes in the age at marriage and in the size of families has provided no conclusive explanations. Possibly the most significant factor in the shrinking death rate was the chance absence, apart from cholera, of the pandemics encountered in earlier centuries. Up to 1914 the population of the most industrialized nations grew fairly rapidly, 1.1 per cent a year in England and Wales, 1.2 per cent average in the German empire, slightly less elsewhere. The population of the regions that in 1871 became the new German empire grew from 24.5 to 58.5 million between 1800 and 1910, making it the most populous state after Russia.1
