The History of the Family concerns the changing interactions between family and social, political and religious structures over the last thousand years of European history. The family is usually described in terms of patterns of kinship, inheritance, and relations between sexes and generations. The author examines the contemporary use of these terms and their evolution from nineteenth-century anthropology and social thought. He then considers how these concepts apply to and reveal the nature of European and other societies.

In this original and timely work, David Arnold draws upon the history of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe, to explain the origins and characteristics of famine. He considers whether some societies are more vulnerable to famine than others, and contests the assumption that those affected by famine are simply passive 'victims'. He compares the ways in which individuals and states have responded to the threat of mass starvation, and the relation of famine to political and social power.

This book is a cross-cultural examination of slavery. It draws material from the many regions, and widely separated historical periods, in which slavery has existed - ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, the Muslim societies of the Middle East and Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. With such a wide geographic and chronological scope, Slavery will provoke historians and sociologists to make new connections and see old problems in a fresh light.

Turley analyses three key themes in the history of slavery: the social and economic importance of slavery within societies,...

This book is a cross-cultural examination of slavery. It draws material from the many regions, and widely separated historical periods, in which slavery has existed - ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, the Muslim societies of the Middle East and Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. With such a wide geographic and chronological scope, Slavery will provoke historians and sociologists to make new connections and see old problems in a fresh light.

Turley analyses three key themes in the history of slavery: the social and economic importance of slavery within societies,...

This book provides an interpretation of the French Revolution that is both thematic and accessible to the general reader. The discussion includes an analysis of the historiography of the subject, and reviews the range of literature produced around the recent Bicentenary. Insisting that the French Revolution had an important social dimension, Alan Forrest demonstrates that the revolutionaries, even the most extreme of them, were committed to an ordered society. He argues that in destroying the political institutions and the corporate structures of the Ancien Regime, they were conscious of the...

This work shows how historians, geographers and philosophers have invoked nature in its various manifestations - climate, topography, vegetation, wildlife and disease - as a dynamic force in human history. In particular, it shows how ideas of geographical and biological determinism have played a major part in social, historical and geographical theory and explanation, and just how problematic this invocation of nature can be.

This book proposes an analysis of the underlying 'logic' of culture, drawing on a wide range of material not previously examined in works of this kind.

From despots to powerless figureheads, and from the Neolithic era to the present, this book traces the history of kingship around the world and the tenacity of its connection with the sacred.

• Considers the many forms that kingship took during this period, including: the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt; the emperors of Japan; the Maya rulers of Mesoamerica; the medieval popes and emperors; and the English and French monarchs of early modern Europe
  
• Explores the panoply of governing roles that kingship involved - administrative, military, judicial, economic, religious...

From despots to powerless figureheads, and from the Neolithic era to the present, this book traces the history of kingship around the world and the tenacity of its connection with the sacred.

• Considers the many forms that kingship took during this period, including: the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt; the emperors of Japan; the Maya rulers of Mesoamerica; the medieval popes and emperors; and the English and French monarchs of early modern Europe
  
• Explores the panoply of governing roles that kingship involved - administrative, military, judicial, economic, religious...

One would not normally expect students of biology to dissect frogs without prior knowledge of frog anatomy; yet students of history are regularly expected to analyse pre-modern institutions and events without any prior knowledge whatsoever of the general anatomy of pre-industrial societies. Gifted students will often acquire considerable knowledge of their particular areas - own individual frogs, so to speak - but the extent to which these conform to or depart from a common pattern remains unknown to them, a fact which seriously limits their capacity for interpretation.

What goes...