This book examines the dramatic fall in family size that occurred in Britain between 1860 and 1940. It overturns current thinking by showing how much variety there was in the occupational patterns of falling fertility. There are entirely new and surprising findings: births were widely spaced from early in marriage; and sexual abstinence by married couples was far more important than previously imagined. This study uniquely integrates the fields of demographic, feminist and labor with intellectual and political history, and will be of interest to all historians, and social and policy...

The Roman father has traditionally provided the pattern of patriarchy in European thought. This book shows how the social realities and cultural representations diverged from this paradigm. Demographic analysis and computer simulation demonstrate that before adulthood most Romans lost their fathers by death. Close reading of Latin texts reveals Roman fathers as devoted and loving, and not harsh, exploitative masters of slaves. The demographic and cultural contexts deepen our understanding of how the patrimony was transmitted.

Through an examination of 255 places in England, Professor McIntosh argues against the suggestion that social regulation was a distinctive feature of the decades around 1600, resulting from Puritanism, and demonstrates that concern with wrongdoing mounted gradually between 1370 and 1600. This trail-breaking study of how English people defined and attempted to control misbehavior opens up little-known sources and new research methods, challenges many historical assumptions and sheds light on the transition from early medieval to early modern patterns.

Katherine Lynch discusses the role of the family in society from the late Middle Ages to the industrial period. She argues that in western Europe an ongoing, and recognizably western pattern of relationships among individuals, their families, and communities emerged in the late medieval period. Tracing the pattern through the nineteenth century, this study explores the family's function as an organization on the boundary between public and private life, rather than as part of a "private sphere," and how this phenomenon has been influenced by political, religious and demographic factors.

John Broad explores the rise and fall of the Verney family of Middle Claydon, Buckinghamshire, demonstrating the family's rise to wealth as motivated by a strong dynastic imperative. He reveals how the family managed its estates to maximize income and used its wealth to transform the Claydon villages and landscape, creating a pattern of "open" and "closed" parishes. Based on the formidable Verney family archive with its abundant correspondence, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the English countryside as a dynamic force in English social, economic and demographic history.

Scottish education and literacy have achieved a legendary status. A campaign promoted by church and state between 1560 and 1696 is said to have produced the most literate population in the early modern world. This book sets out to test this belief by comparing the ability to read and write in Scotland with northern England in particular and with Europe and North America in general. It combines extensive statistical analysis with qualitative and theoretical discussion to produce an important argument about the significance of literacy and education for the individual and society of relevance...

This study redresses the North and South imbalance of much of the work in British economic and social history by focusing on the impact of the building trade. The period 1450-1750 witnessed substantial changes in England, including the size of national population, the range of industry, agricultural techniques, and the proportion of population tied to the soil. Using sources from local archives, the author addresses conditions of work in the building trades, levels of remuneration, gender differences in work, and relationships with employers.

In this study Mr Baines has devised a method of estimating the county of birth of all permanent emigrants from England and Wales in the last four decades of the nineteenth century - some 2.3 million people. He has related the rate and timing of migration to the social and economic characteristics of the counties, which has provided answers to many of the outstanding questions in the history of English emigration, including, for example, the idea of an 'Atlantic Economy' and the extent to which Welsh migration was distinct from or integrated into the English pattern. Briefly, the book...

This book examines the effects of nineteenth-century industrialization on the strength of relationships within the family and between generations. Dr. Janssens' quantitative approach, based on Dutch population registers, reveals a new perspective: although family life did go through some changes, early industrialization did not lead to the destruction of nineteenth-century family life, as the traditionally dominant view contended. This innovative study also illuminates wider social issues--the nature of hierarchies, class structure and household organization.

The enormous growth of London during the early modern period brought with it major social problems, yet, as Steve Rappaport demonstrates in this innovative study, Tudor London was essentially a stable society, subject to stress but never seriously threatened by widespread popular unrest or other forms of instability. Professor Rappaport looks once again at the nature, causes, and effects of the principal threats to the capital's stability in the sixteenth century - the threefold increase in population, the economic impact of such demographic expansion, the substantial rise in prices and the...