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Since the publication of Philippe Ari s'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.

Simon Teuscher has taught at UCLA and has been a member in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is presently a professor of Medieval History at the University of Zurich.

Jon Mathieu has taught in various universities in Switzerland and other countries. He was the founding director of the Istituto di Storia delle Alpi at the University of Lugano. Currently he is a professor at the University of Lucerne.

David Warren Sabean has taught at the University of East Anglia, University of Pittsburgh, Cornell University, and UCLA. He was a fellow of the Max Planck Institute for History and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Forschungspreis. He is currently the Henry J. Bruman Professor of German History at UCLA.