Historical Demography

Sources and Methods of Historical Demography covers the fundamental sources, methods, and approaches to explanatory modeling for describing, analyzing, and understanding demographic features of past societies. The book discusses the intellectual ancestry of historical demographic research, beginning in the 17th century; as well as the logic of basic techniques for reconstructing and analyzing information from fundamental source materials. The text also describes the full range of disciplines that have made major contributions to historical demography, and examples of empirical research. The book concludes by arguing the case for conducting historical demographic research with a broad, interdisciplinary ideal in mind. Historians and sociologists will find the book invaluable.

This book is a selection of papers explaining a variety of techniques used in the analysis of historical demographic data. The papers come from experts in the field of systematic analysis of past population patterns. The papers are divided into five groups. The first tackles the issues andchallenges of time series analysis and other approaches to population reconstruction. The second group deals with different methods of family reconstitution and the problems of following life Scholars and students of politics, political theory, philosophy, sociology, and jurisprudence; anyoneinterested in nation-building, nationalism, and self-determination.

This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, Population in History represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century. There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe. Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere.

Studies in American Historical Demography is a collection of the best studies in American historical demography. The book discusses some methodological and conceptual considerations in the trends in American historical demography; the demographic history of colonial New England; and the marital migration in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the colonial and early federal periods. The text also describes the historical trends in parental power and marriage patterns in Hingham, Massachusetts; the use of demographic data that are, or may be, retrieved from colonial New England gravestones; and the mortality rates and trends in Massachusetts, Massachusetts. The estimates of the vital rates of the United States black population during the 19th century; the two-parent household; as well as the differential fertility in Madison County, New York, 1865 are also considered. The book further tackles the socioeconomic determinants of interstate fertility differentials in the United States in 1850 and 1860; cohorts of native born Massachusetts women, 1830-1920; and the demographic change and the life cycle of American families. Historians, demographers, anthropologists, economists, and sociologists will find the book invaluable.

This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, Population in History represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century.There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe.Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere.

At the XIst World Congress of Historical Sciences (CISH) in Stockholm 1960, an interdisciplinary International Commission for Historical Demography was created, where researchers in letters and science could meet, and develop a new field with global dimensions and ambitions.