Population in History: Essays in Historical Demography

by D.V. Glass, David Edward Charles Eversley

Population in Essays in Historical Demography

700 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a longstanding interest in demographics, both as a method in studying history and as an analysis of trends in itself. My master’s thesis, in fact, made heavy use of demographic analysis as a tool in identifying migration patterns along the Red River in north Texas. That was thirty years ago and this fat anthology was one of the preparatory sources in which I immersed myself. I still go back and reread certain of the included essays when I’m engaged in a project in which demographics plays a role. Of the twenty-seven essays, seven were previously published, and several of those have become classics. Foremost among the latter, I think, are Sigismund Peller’s “Births and Deaths among Europe’s Ruling Families since 1500,” which introduced several new analytical techniques (he was a physician, actually, not an historian, with an interest in the shifting causes of mortality), and T. H. Hollingsworth’s “A Demographic Study of the British Ducal Families,” which built upon Peller’s methods and brought to the fore a number of previously unnoticed trends among the British elite. (Yes, I have a long interest in peerage genealogy, too.) Of the other essays, one of the most fascinating is “The Vital Revolution Reconsidered,” by Karl Helleiner (a noted medievalist with a particular interest in the effects of the Black Death), which considers the abrupt shift in mortality rates throughout the western world within the few decades on either side of 1700. Two others of particular interest, especially for the 1950s and ’60s, are D. E. C. Eversley’s “Population, Economy, and Society,” a groundbreaking consideration of the “new economic history” (new then, anyway) and how to measure population changes within that context, and Louis Chevalier’s “Toward a History of Population,” which lays out in detail the reasons demographic analysis is useful in the study of history and how to achieve that utility. Younger historians are generally up-to-date on the new historiographical methods and tools they learn about in grad school but they tend to ignore the older methods. Rather than taking the earlier “revolutions” for granted, today’s students need to delve into the reasons why they were revolutionary. This volume is an excellent way to do that.

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vr boring chapter with sections on medieval europe. Pleasingly skeptical about generalisations re: marriage patterns. Has useful definition of -companionate marriage-