About the Book
Recently considerable interest has developed about the degree to which anthropological approaches to kinship can be used for the study of the long-term development of European history. From the late middle ages to the dawn of the twentieth century, kinship - rather than declining, as is often assumed - was twice reconfigured in dramatic ways and became increasingly significant as a force in historical change, with remarkable similarities across European society. Applying interdisciplinary approaches from social and cultural history and literature and focusing on sibling relationships, this volume takes up the challenge of examining the systemic and structural development of kinship over the long term by looking at the close inner-familial dynamics of ruling families (the Hohenzollerns), cultural leaders (the Mendelssohns), business and professional classes, and political figures (the Gladstones)in France, Italy, Germany, and England. It offers insight into the current issues in kinship studies and draws from a wide range of personal documents: letters, autobiographies, testaments, memoirs, as well as genealogies and works of art.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures and Illustrations
Preface
Chapter 1. From Siblingship to Siblinghood: Kinship and the Shaping of European Society (1300-1900)
Christopher H. Johnson and David Warren Sabean
PART I: PROPERTY, POLITICS, AND SIBLING STRATEGIES (LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN)
Chapter 2. Dowry: Sharing Inheritance or Exclusion? Timing, Destination, and Contents of Transmission in Late Medieval and Early Modern France
Bernard Derouet
Chapter 3. Maintenance Regulations and Sibling Relations in the High Nobility of Late Medieval Germany
Karl-Heinz Spiess
Chapter 4. Do Sisters have Brothers?Or the Search for the “rechte Schwester”:Brothers and Sisters in Aristocratic Society at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century
Michaela Hohkamp
Chapter 5. Subordinates, Patrons, and Most Beloved: Sibling Relationships in Seventeenth-Century German Court Society
Sophie Ruppel
Chapter 6. The Crown Prince’s Brothers and Sisters: Succession and Inheritance Problems and Solutions among the Hohenzollerns, from the Great Elector to Frederick the Great
Benjamin Marschke
Chapter 7. The Evolution within Sibling Groups from one Kinship System to Another (Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries)
Gérard Delille
PART II: SIBLING RELATIONS, CLOSE MARRIAGE, AND HORIZONTAL KINSHIP, 1750-1900
Chapter 8. Brother Trouble: Murder and Incest in Scottish Ballads
Ruth Perry
Chapter 9. Siblinghood and the Emotional Dimensions of the New Kinship System, 1800-1850: A French Example
Christopher H. Johnson
Chapter 10. Kinship and Issues of the Self in Europe around 1800
David Warren Sabean
Chapter 11. Sisters, Wives, and the Sublimation of Desire in a Jewish-Protestant Friendship: The Letters of the Historian Johann Gustav Droysen and the Composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Regina Schulte
Chapter 12. Husband, Wife, and Sister: Making and Remaking the Early Victorian Family
Mary Jean Corbett
Chapter 13. Gender and Age in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Case of Anne, William, and Helen Gladstone
Leonore Davidoff
Bibliography
About the Author :
Christopher H. Johnson is Professor Emeritus of History and member of the Academy of Scholars at Wayne State University. He has held fellowships from the Leverhulme and the Guggenheim Foundations as well as the Social Science Research Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His publications include Utopian Communism in France: Cabet and the Icarians, 1839-1851 (Cornell, 1974) (nominated for a National Book Award in 1975); Maurice Sugar: Law, Labor, and the Left in Detroit, 1912-1950 (Wayne State, 1989), and The Life and Death of Industrial Languedoc, 1700–1920: The Politics of De-Industrialization (Oxford, 1995).
Review :
“In all cases, the research is solid, not drawing from a single source, such as a series of letters, but including a broad range of historical evidence. The analyses themselves are nicely nuanced and all connect with the main theoretical issues of the field, providing a lively discussion and indicating new directions for research. Scholars from many fields focusing on family and kinship, as well as general readers with an interest in family relations, will enjoy and find stimulation in this volume.” · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“This volume, and the wider project of which it forms one part, are significant contributions to the current re-assessment of kinship, and planned volumes on transnational families and the importance of blood in defining kin are eagerly awaited.” · The Journal of Interdisciplinary History
“The study of kinship remains a lively concern among historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. One of the very attractive features of the volume is its crossdisciplinary representation from these fields but also from literature…[and] the mix of senior and junior scholars.” · Mary Lindemann, University of Miami
“The essays are of uniform excellence and interest, written by established scholars, including very well known scholars; the essays also make a remarkably coherent set…[and] are well focused…the research is valuable, offering original perspectives on a number of issues, from kinship reckoning to industrialization, to emotional history. This is a very useful, and widely cited companion to the previous volume on kinship in Europe, a great introduction to the current research.” · William Reddy, Duke University
