This book follows the social, economic and demographic transformations of the Alpine area from the late Middle Ages. Its aim is to reassess the image of the upland community which emerges from the work of historians, geographers and social anthropologists. The book therefore deals at length with such problems as the causes and consequences of emigration and patterns of marriage and inheritance in favouring or hampering the adjustments of local populations to changing economic or ecological circumstances, and tackles the vexed question of the relative importance of cultural and environmental...