Abstract

While the current discussion of ethnic, trade, and commercial diasporas, global networks, and transnational communities constantly makes reference to the importance of families and kinship groups for understanding the dynamics of dispersion, few studies examine the nature of these families in any detail. This book, centered largely on the European experience of families scattered geographically, challenges the dominant narratives of modernization by offering a long-term perspective from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. Paradoxically, “transnational families” are to be found long before the nation-state was in place.

“The organizers and editors of the various panels and the book’s editors are to be congratulated for bringing together such a diverse group of scholars into a “global” discussion… The present volume stands as a pioneering effort to guide scholars towards the goal [of pointed theoretical questions for comparative study]…The book is nicely put together.”  ·  Journal of Social History

“…The volume [is] an accomplished and diligent work, a touchstone to teach us about the limits of anthropological engagement. The ‘lively exchange’ between history and anthropology will only take place when anthropologists will take seriously the contributions made herein and apply them to the fields of migration studies, transnationalism and mobility.”  ·  Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
 

David Warren Sabean is Henry J. Bruman Professor of German History at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Francesca Trivellato is Professor of History at Yale University.

Simon Teuscher is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Zurich.

Christopher H. Johnson is Professor Emeritus of History and member of the Academy of Scholars at Wayne State University.