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Since the publication of Philippe Ariès’s 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.
THIRD PRIZE IN THE CATEGORY OF HISTORY BOOKS IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD
Awarded for 2009 by H-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.” · Mediterranean Historical Review
“...the three editors have done a fine job in integrating the individual studies and in ensuring that the English translations (by four different translators) read smoothly throughout. Standardization was a particularly important task.” · JRAI
“On the whole, the general arguments made here for the continued importance of kinship in modernity, as well as the two major changes in kinship organization, are convincing. Kinship in Europe is also to be commended for its impressive array of subjects and the admirably diverse nature of its contributors. Above all, it manages to complicate traditional narratives of modernity, and provides a less simplistic, linear model of development." · H-German
“…a refreshing new way to look at European history through the lens of kinship. ..This volume challenges the artificial division between so-called traditional and modern societies.” · Sixteenth Century Journal
“[This volume] is without doubt one of the most stimulating books that have recently been published in the field of the history of the family and parenthood. It appears at a crucial moment when the latter is about to sever its links with historical demography and to attract more and more scholars in anthropology, legal, social, and literary history…overcoming the traditional divisions between the different disciplines in the humanities.” · Annales de Démographie Historique
Glossary
Preface
Chapter 1. Kinship in Europe: A New Approach to Long-Term Development
David Warren Sabean and Simon Teuscher
Chapter 2. Bringing it All Back Home: Kinship Theory in Anthropology
Sylvia J. Yanagisako
TRANSITION 1: FROM MEDIEVAL TO EARLY MODERN KINSHIP PATTERNS
Outline and Summaries
Chapter 3. Lordship, Kinship, and Inheritance among the German High Nobility in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
Karl-Heinz Spiess
Chapter 4. Politics of Kinship in the City of Bern at the End of the Middle Ages
Simon Teuscher
Chapter 5. Sisters,Aunts, and Cousins: Familial Architectures and the Political Field in Early Modern Europe
Michaela Hohkamp
Chapter 6. Political Power, Inheritance, and Kinship Relations: The Unique Features of Southern France (Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries)
Bernard Derouet
Chapter 7. The Making of Stability: Kinship, Church, and Power among the Rhenish Imperial Knighthood, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Christophe Duhamelle
Chapter 8. Rights and Ties that Bind: Mothers, Children, and the State in Tuscany during the Early Modern Period
Giulia Calvi
Chapter 9. Kinship, Marriage, and Politics
Gérard Delille
TRANSITION 2: FROM EARLY MODERN TO NINETEENTH-CENTURY KINSHIP PATTERNS
Outline and Summaries
Chapter 10. Kinship and Mobility: Migrant Networks in Europe
Laurence Fontaine
Chapter 11. Kin Marriages: Trends and Interpretations from the Swiss Example
Jon Mathieu
Chapter 12. Kinship and Gender: Property, Enterprise, and Politics
Elisabeth Joris
Chapter 13. Kinship, Civil Society, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Vannes
Christopher H. Johnson
Chapter 14. Middle-Class Kinship in Nineteenth-Century Hungary
Gábor Gyáni
Chapter 15. Kinship and Class Dynamics in Nineteenth-Century Europe
David Warren Sabean
Notes on Contributors
Index