Kinship in Europe Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300-1900) [Hardcover]

Since the publication of Philippe Ari?ss book,Centuries of Childhood, in the early 1960s, there has been great interest among historians in the history of the family and the household. A central aspect of the debate relates the story of the family to implicit notions of modernization, with the rise of the nuclear family in the West as part of its economic and political success. During the past decade, however, that synthesis has begun to break down. Historians have begun to examine kinship - the way individual families are connected to each other through marriage and descent - finding that during the most dynamic period in European industrial development, class formation, and state reorganization, Europe became a kinship hot society. The essays in this volume explore two major transitions in kinship patterns - at the end of the Middle Ages and at the end of the eighteenth century - in an effort to reset the agenda in family history.

Simon Teuscherhas taught at UCLA and has been a member in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is presently a professor of Medieval History at the University of Zurich.

THIRD PRIZE IN THE CATEGORY OF HISTORY BOOKS IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD
Awarded for 2009 byH-Soz-und-Kult

As synthesis and provocative impulse this volume offers a stimulating overview of recent social and cultural-historical research on kinship.

This is a volume that few historians can afford to ignore. It not only makes accessible and relevant a conspicuous body of recent work on kinship in Europe between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries, but also offers some startling key hypotheses and a whole research agenda. Unlike many collective volumes, this one is not a mere assemblage of papers gathered around a common topic (let alone a catch-all phrase). On the other hand, nor is it an impenetrable volume for specialists working in a tightly defined field.lÃ#