Human Families

Jan 7, 1999
Paperback
US $50.00
CAN $64.00
UK £29.99
ISBN: 9780813336220
ISBN-10: 0813336228
Published by Westview Press

Description

This detailed study maps the variations in family systems throughout the world, focusing on the ways families interact with their societies. Tracing the developmental cycle of families in a wide range of times and places, Stevan Harrell shows how family members in different societies must cooperate to perform various activities and thus organize themselves in particular ways. Within six major divisions, the book describes families in nomadic bands, traditional African societies, Polynesian and Micronesian societies, native societies of the Pacific Northwest coast, preindustrial class societies, and modern industrial societies. Within each group, the author’s copious examples demonstrate the variation from one family system to another. His case studies are clearly illustrated with a unique set of diagrams that allow comparison of complex groups and of family processes extending over a generation. Scholars and advanced students alike will find this ambitious book an invaluable resource.

Reviews

“Harrell deserves a major place in the history of anthropology not only for a new classic on a venerable theme, but for his persistence in arguing from the unfashionable side of our disciplinary dialectic, and, in doing so, helping the pendulum swing once more toward the evolutionary.”
— Hill Gates, Stanford University

“A valuable resource.”
— Choice

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