Description
Book SynopsisThis book addresses the question of what world history looks like when the family is at the center of the story. People have always lived in families, but what that means has varied dramatically over time and across cultures. The family is not a natural phenomenon--it has a history. And family life is not limited to the realm of the private or the strictly personal; the family is a force of history. Gender and generational differences affect how individual family members relate to each other and how the family operates in changing historical times. For example, youth rebellion against repressive elders fed into choices about conversion to Christianity in colonial Kenya in the early twentieth century and also into the May Fourth rebellion against traditional rule in China in 1919.These are the sorts of examples that drive the narrative of The Family: A World History. Maynes and Waltner begin their story more than 10,000 years ago with various projects of domestication around the globe -
Trade ReviewA thoughtful work that is part of an exciting series, the New Oxford World History. This is very much an American series and reflects the energy of that historical community. Pledged to offer a comprehensive world history that looks over a long timespan, this series provides the basis for an account of the family that begins in 10,000 BCE ... the scholarship is up to date, the judgments pertinent and the writing good. An impressive volume. * Jeremy Black, The Historian *
This welcome addition to the New Oxford World History series examines both the history of the family as a social institution from Paleolithic times to the present, and the ways in which the family has been an agent of historical change ... excellent * Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Journal of Social History *
Table of ContentsEditors' Preface ; Introduction ; Chapter 1: Domestic Life and Human Origins ; Chapter 2: The Birth of the Gods: Family in the Emergence of Religions and Cosmologies ; Chapter 3: Ruling Families: Kinship at the Dawn of Politics (3000 BCE to 1450 CE) ; Chapter 4: Family Dynamics in a Global Frame (1400-1750) ; Chapter 5: Families in Global Markets (1600-1850) ; Chapter 6: Families in Revolutionary Times (1750-1920) ; Chapter 7: Powers of Life and Death: Families in the Era of State Population Management (1880 to the Present) ; Epilogue: The Future of the Family ; Chronology ; Notes ; Further Reading ; Websites ; Index
