Books Edited
Below is a complete list of the books edited by David Kertzer.
Please click on a book cover to find out more about it.
Urban Life in Mediterranean Europe: Anthropological Perspectives
Edited with Michael Kenny. (University of Illinois Press, 1983)
Age and Anthropological Theory
Edited with Jennie Keith. (Cornell University Press,1984)
The Family in Life Course Perspective
Editor vol. 2 of Current Perspectives on Aging and the Life-Cycle (JAI Press, 1986)
Age Structuring in Comparative Perspective
Edited with K. Warner Schaie. (Erlbaum, 1989).
The History of the Italian Family
Special issue of the Journal of Family History, edited with Marzio Barbagli (winter, 1990). Italian version published as Storia della Famiglia Italiana (1750-1930)
(Il Mulino, 1992).
Italian Politics, 1996
Edited with Mario Caciagli. (Westview, 1996). Italian edition published as Politica in Italia 1996
(Il Mulino, 1996).
Anthropological Demography
Anthropological Demography:
Toward a New Synthesis
Edited by David I. Kertzer and Tom Fricke
( University of Chicago Press, 1997)
Although in its early years anthropology often used demographic research and showed interest in demographic issues, anthropology and demography have more recently grown to distrust each other's guiding assumptions and methods. Demographers have stressed universal causal models and standardized survey methods, while sociocultural anthropologists have increasingly focused on the uniqueness of different peoples and their cultures.
Showing that the two disciplines have much to offer each other, this book bridges the demography/anthropology divide. The editors begin the volume with an in-depth historical account of the relations between the fields. Eminent contributors from both disciplines then examine the major issues and controversies in anthropological demography, including the demographic implications of differing family and kinship systems; the influence of new developments in cultural, gender, and identity theory on population study; the limits of quantitative approaches in demographic study; and demographers' views of the limits of anthropological methods.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
- Toward an Anthropological Demography
David I. Kertzer, Tom Fricke. - Kinship Systems and Demographic Regimes
Monica Das Gupta - Family Systems and Demographic Processes
G. William Skinner - Reproduction in Anthropology and Demography
Nicholas Townsend - Similarities and Differences: Anthropological and Demographic Perspectives on Gender
Nancy E. Riley - Population and Identity
Philip Kreager - Anthropology and Demography: Marriage, Liaison, or Encounter?
E. A. Hammel, Diana S. Friou. - Demography without Numbers
Nancy Scheper-Hughes - "Truth Lies in the Eye of the Beholder": The Nature of Evidence in Demography and Anthropology
Allan G. Hill - Culture Theory and Demographic Process: Toward a Thicker Demography
Tom Fricke
Contributors
Index
Census and Identity
Census and Identity:
The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses
(New Perspectives on Anthropological and Social Demography, 1)
Edited by David I. Kertzer and Dominique Arel
(Cambridge University Press, 2002)
The Politics of Race, Ethnicity and Language in National Censuses examines the ways that states have attempted to pigeon-hole the people within their boundaries into racial, ethnic, and language categories. These attempts, whether through American efforts to divide the US population into mutually exclusive racial categories, or through the Soviet system of inscribing nationality categories on internal passports, have important implications not only for people’s own identities and life chances, but for national political and social processes as well. The book reviews the history of these categorizing efforts by the state, and offers a theoretical context for examining them, illustrating the case with studies from a range of countries.
Chapter Contents
Chapter Contents
- "Censuses, identity formation, and the struggle for political power"
David I. Kertzer and Dominique Arel - "Racial categorization in censuses "
Melissa Nobles - "Ethnic categorization in censuses: comparative observations from Israel, Canada, and the United States"
Calvin Goldscheider - "Language categories in censuses: backward- or forward-looking?"
Dominique Arel - "The debate on resisting identity categorization in France"
Alain Blum - "On counting, categorizing, and violence in Burundi and Rwanda"
Peter Uvin - "Identity counts: the Soviet legacy and the census in Uzbekistan"
David Abramson.
Family Life in Early Modern Times, 1500-1789
Family Life in Early Modern Times, 1500-1789
History of the European Family, Volume 1
Edited by David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli
(Yale University Press, 2001)
This book inaugurates a major three-volume history of the family in Europe over the past five hundred years. In the series, eminent European and American social historians present a fresh reading of family life in Europe, explaining how families and family relations differed across Europe and how and why they changed over time.
This volume deals with family life in Europe—and the institutional, economic, political, and cultural forces that transformed it—from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Chapters consider, for example, the family’s housing, diet, and domestic organization; the nature of family law; the impact of religious change; demographic factors such as disease and childhood mortality; relations between parents and children; and the effect of changing trends in marriage, divorce, and extended kin relationships. Using research techniques from the social sciences as well as new insights from cultural and gender history and the history of sexuality, the contributors present a vivid picture of family life in early modern times that will forever change our image of that era.
International editions
Italian edition (Storia della famiglia in Europa. Dal Cinquecento alla Rivoluzione Francese) published by Laterza in 2002.
Spanish edition (La vida familiar a principios de la era moderna) published by Paidós in 2002.
Family life in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1789-1913
Family life in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1789-1913
History of the European Family, Volume 2
Edited by David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli
(Yale University Press, 2002)
This second of three extraordinary volumes on the history of the family in Europe focuses on family life and the forces that shaped it from the French Revolution to the First World War. The political and economic forces that transformed Europe in these years had a tremendous impact on family life. The contributors to the book examine the changing life experiences of ordinary people from a variety of perspectives and provide new keys to understanding the nature of the emerging modern European family.
How did industrialization, new technology, the growth of cities, and the revolution in transport and communication alter daily life? How did the family—the vital social unit that determined not only how and where people lived, but often where they worked—adapt to the demands of the new economy? The contributors explore these questions and more, illuminating the changes the nineteenth century brought about in the family and uncovering a fascinating diversity of family forms and family relations in different parts of Europe and distinguishing different social classes.
International editions
Italian edition (Storia della famiglia in Europa. Il lungo Ottocento) published by Laterza in 2003
Spanish edition (La vida familiar desde la Revolución Francesa hasta la Primera Guerra Mundial) published by Paidós in 2003
Family Life in the Twentieth Century
Family Life in the Twentieth Century
The History of the European Family, Volume 3
Edited by David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli
(Yale University Press, 2003)
This third and final volume of The History of the European Family series concludes a comprehensive work synthesizing what is known about the history of the European family over the past five centuries. It places family history and the changing life experience of ordinary people at the heart of the new social history.
The twentieth century saw extraordinary events and changes that were without precedent in human history. It was the century of world wars, of economic crises, and of radically new ideologies and political regimes; yet it was also the century of guaranteed social rights, economic growth and the advent of the welfare state. The profound political and social transformations of 1914-2000 had a huge impact on European families, particularly in relation to women and contraception, work and migration, domestic instability, and the law.
One of the fundamental questions raised by Barbagli and Kertzer is whether, and to what extent, different European societies became more or less similar over the course of the twentieth century, as far as the nature of family life was concerned. Bringing together ten of the leading contemporary scholars from across Europe and America, the editors present a collection of brand-new essays which explore the influences of the economy, the state, the church, the world wars, and other demographic forces over the European family during the most violent century in history.
How did industrialization, new technology, the growth of cities, and the revolution in transport and communication alter daily life? How did the family—the vital social unit that determined not only how and where people lived, but often where they worked—adapt to the demands of the new economy? The contributors explore these questions and more, illuminating the changes the nineteenth century brought about in the family and uncovering a fascinating diversity of family forms and family relations in different parts of Europe and distinguishing different social classes.
International editions
Spanish edition (La vida familiar en el siglo XX) published by Paidós in 2004
Old Demons, New Debates
Old Demons, New Debates:
Anti-Semitism in the West.
Edited by David I. Kertzer
(Holmes & Meier, 2005)
Old Demons, New Debates offers a provocative new view on the recent upsurge of anti-Semitism in the West. The authors - including both well-known public intellectuals and major scholars - address themselves to a broad audience. They describe the new anti-Semitism, and show how it draws on older forms of Jew hatred while being fueled by both anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. Special attention is paid to the situation in Europe - with particular emphasis on France and England - and the United States. As the authors show, the new anti-Semitism, far from being the exclusive province of the ignorant and unlettered, is nourished by intellectuals and elites. Is anti-Semitism really no longer a danger? Or are the old demons back? Old Demons, New Debates is sure to trigger heated new debates on this crucial issue.
Preface
Preface
Until recently, many Jews-and not only Jews-were confident that following the mass murder of European Jewry in the mid-twentieth century, the Western world had become inoculated against the toxin of anti-Semitism. Surely, they thought, anti-Semitism – now so closely identified with the ravings of Hitler and the slaughter that was the Shoah – could not easily rise again, at least as other than a crackpot movement identified with the mentally unstable. And if there was a time in the not too distant past when all too many Europeans seemed fixated on the Jews as the occult source of their problems, surely, most of us thought, such dismal days were behind us for good.
And yet, in many parts of Europe today, Jews feel newly vulnerable. Not only have we been receiving a disturbing series of reports of fire-bombings of synagogues, desecrations of Jewish cemeteries, and verbal and physical assaults on Jews because they are Jews, but the blaming of Jews for the world's problems has again begun to gain currency. And all this comes in a setting where the memory of the Shoah remains very much alive, etched in the very buildings that people walk by every day.
Of course, this new feeling of vulnerability comes in the context of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But while events in the Middle East certainly help explain this vulnerability, they have also introduced an element that has made the Jews feel even more isolated. The vilification of the Jews now has political cover, at least on the left, that it did not have before. Crowds of French or Italian or British demonstrations for this or that cause are now commonly dotted with placards equating the Israelis with the Nazis.
Let me offer what I find a particularly chilling, although in its way absolutely typical, example: In 2002, the scholar Ruggero Taradel was asked to speak at one of Rome 's most prestigious public high schools, known for training the Italian elite. The occasion was Holocaust Remembrance Day. He brought with him a local survivor, and after Professor Taradel had given a historical overview of what had happened to Italy 's Jews during the war, the survivor spoke about her own experiences. Hundreds of students and their teachers were packed into the auditorium. When the time came for questions, a hand shot up from among the students. “I don't see why we should be spending our time here talking about the Holocaust when the Jews are doing to the Palestinians the same things that the Nazis did to them.” The assembled students greeted the remark with enthusiastic, prolonged applause, joined by their teachers. Professor Taradel and the Holocaust survivor began to try to respond in as reasonable a way as they could, but they were interrupted by angry shouts, and so the teacher in charge had to get up precipitously, thank them for coming, and call the assembly to a close. The two were rushed out of the hall to avoid further unpleasantness and were ushered into the principal's office. Making no mention of the scene that had just transpired, much less offering any apologies, the principal instead presented them with a volume recounting the school's history. Thereafter, the school abandoned the idea of marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In order to take stock of this situation and to try to trace its contours and measure its magnitude and path, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research sponsored an international conference in May 2003. The ambitious event took place over four days, the hundreds of people coming to hear each session spilling out into an adjacent hall for remote viewing. They were not disappointed, as the thirty-five speakers included leading intellectuals from both Europe and the United States , and their talks-grim as their subject matter was sparkled with new insight.
It was the strong feeling of those who attended the conference that the subject's timeliness and the importance of what was said there made it desirable to prepare a book that could make these insights available to a much wider audience. I approached those among the thirty-five speakers whose remarks I thought most lent themselves to a publication of this sort and asked if they would be willing to transform what were in some cases intended only as relatively brief oral remarks into a fuller form. I also asked that the developments in the year following the conference be taken into account in the chapters they prepared for this book.
The result is what you have in your hands. Of these fifteen chapters, fourteen grew out of the presentations given at the YIVO conference. In February 2004, an essay on anti-Semitism by noted historian Omer Bartov appeared in the New Republic . It raised excellent and stimulating points not otherwise fully covered in our chapters; I was very pleased that Professor Bartov agreed to prepare a revised version of this piece for this volume. Bartov is thus the only author in this book who was not a speaker at the 2003 conference.
Some of these chapters take a broad view, focusing on such subjects as the ambiguous role of European intellectuals in the rise of anti -Semitism, the role of Israel and anti-Zionism in fueling anti-Semitism, and the thorny problem of distinguishing between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy and the use of widespread European antipathy toward Israeli settlement policy as a cover for the spread of anti-Semitism. Some of our authors remain quite optimistic-most notably Nathan Glazer in his essay on why he believes U.S. “exceptionalism” extends to the inhospitality of U.S. soil to the growth of anti-Semitism, but also Konstanty Gebert, who argues that the Poles have not been given sufficient credit for the strides they have made in overcoming a history of anti-Semitism. Others, many others, strike a more pessimistic note. The book opens with Leon Wieseltier's lament that anti-Semitism should still be with us after all these years. Omer Bartov expresses his distress at the failure of intellectuals to take anti-Semites at their word and at the reluctance of European and American journalists to call attention to anti-Semitic motivations behind various violent acts, especially when these come from Muslims, a point also made by Robert S. Wistrich and others. Mark Lilla sees the Jews as caught in a no-win situation: Previously they were mocked, he tells us, for being a people who lacked their own nation-state; now they are mocked for having one and wanting to hold on to it. Fiamma Nirenstein, whose anger at the wave of anti-Semitism seeps clearly through her chapter, argues that “ Europe has always been ready to be anti-Semitic and anti-American but not to admit it.” Pierre Birnbaum's account of Jewish anguish in France today is chilling, telling us that French Jews feel they have recently embarked on an unwanted journey into a “fearful heart of darkness.” Indeed, increasing numbers of French Jews believe that France is no longer a comfortable place for Jews to live. Konstanty Gebert begins his chapter by telling of his own experience wearing a Jewish skullcap in Paris , where onlookers stood by while he was attacked for the “crime” of being a Jew. Nor does his experience appear to be unusual: France 's chief rabbi recently recommended that men avoid wearing their skullcaps in public, replacing them with more anonymous caps. Once again, it is dangerous to be identifiable as a Jew on the streets in parts of Europe.
I will resist the temptation to steal the thunder from the authors of the chapters that follow, for each tells a compelling story. Together, they paint an unsettling picture. For an understanding of the nature of anti-Semitism in Europe today and of just how serious it is, I don't think the reader can do better than to read them.
David I. Kertzer
March 2005
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
David I. Kertzer
1. Old Demons, New Debates
Leon Wieseltier
2. The New Anti-Semitism: Genealogy and Implications
Omer Bartow
3. The End of Politics
Mark Lilla
4. Zionism and Anti-Semitism
Hillel Halkin
5. Israel, Globalization, and Anti-Semitism in Europe
Fiamma Nirenstein
6. Anti-Semitism and the English Intelligentsia
Anthony Julius
7. Playground for Jihad? The Case of Great Britain
Robert S. Wistrich
8. The Retreat of the Strong State and the New Anti-Semitic Mobilization in France
Pierre Birnbaum
9. Esau Can Change, but Will We Notice?
Konstanty Gebert
10. Telling the Past Anew: Recent Polish Debates on Anti-Semitism
Jaroslaw Anders
11. Anti-Semitism in the Spanish-Speaking World
Enrique Krauze
12. Anti-Semitism and the Vatican Today
David I. Kertzer
13. Holocaust Denial
Deborah Lipstadt
14. Anti-Semitism in the United States
Nathan Glazer
15. The Globalization of Anti-Semitism
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Notes
Contributions
Acknowledgments
Index
The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present
The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present
Edited by David I. Kertzer and Richard P. Saller
( Yale University Press, 1991)
The product of a joint effort by a group of historians and anthropologists to advance the understanding of European family life, this book focuses on how and why family life in Italy has changed over a two thousand year period. As the center of an ancient empire and then of Western Christendom, Rome and Italy have had a profound influence on the rest of Europe. While the roots of Western family life cannot be discovered in Italy alone, this collection of essays offers a valuable point from which to begin any investigation of that history. Among other advantages is the fact that Italy is the only place in western Europe for which adequate evidence exists to document family life both before and after the establishment of Christianity, through the Middle Ages, and into the modern area. The volume brings together prominent classical historians, medievalists, and anthropologists in employing a wide variety of kinds of historical evidence to better illuminate the course of Italian--and more generally, Western--family history.
International Editions
Italian edition (La famiglia in Italia dall'antichità al XX secolo) published by Le Lettere (Florence) in 1995
Reviews
"This impressive collection, the product of an interdisciplinary conference, fills an important gap in both the historical and the anthropological literature on family structures and practices in the Western world. The choice of Italy was fortuitous. The availability of two millenia of documentary evidence permits cross-historical comparison within a single case, allowing the reader to see not only the continuities but, just as importantly, diversity and variability through both time and space. A central theme for both historians and anthropologists is the ambiguous relationship between ideology and social practice. This theme is explored not only in relation to traditional demographic and economic concerns, but also in relation to two areas of recent interest: the impact on family life of two powerful institutional and ideological forces, the Catholic Church and the state; and gender ideologies. Because this approach leads to a consideration of how and why societies change, this book will interest not only students of Italian society and culture, but anthropologists and historians generally."
—Choice, (May, 1992) by S. M. DiGiacomo, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on Italian Family Life
Richard P. Saller and David I. Kertzer
Part One: Antiquity
Introduction by Richard P. Saller
2. Roman Heirship Strategy in Principle and in Practice
Richard P. Saller
3. Child Rearing in Ancient Italy
Peter Garnsey
4. The Cultural Meaning of Death: Age and Gender in the Roman Family
Brent Shaw
5. Ideals and Practicalities in Matchmaking in Ancient Roman
Susan Treggiari
6. The Augustan Law on Adultery: The Social and Cultural Context
David Cohen
7. Constructing Kinship in Rome: Marriage and Divorce, Filiation and Adoption
Mireille Corbier
Part Two: The Medieval Fulcrum
Introduction by Julius Kirshner
8. Ideas about Procreation and their Influence on Ancient and Medieval Views of Kinship
Jane Fair Bestor
9. Sexuality, Marriage, Celibacy, and the Family in Central and Northern Italy: Christian Legal and Moral Guides in the Early Middle Ages
Michael Sheehan
10. Materials for a Gilded Cage: Non-Dotal Assets in Florence, 1300-1500
Julius Kirshner
11. Kinship and Politics in Fourteenth-Century Florence
Christiane Klapisch-Zuber
12. Homicides of Honor: The Development of Italian Adultery Law over Two Millennia
Eva Cantarella
Part Three: The Modern World
Introduction by David I. Kertzer
13. Three Household Formation Systems in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Italy
Marzio Barbagli
14. Choosing a Spouse among Nineteenth-Century Central Italian Sharecroppers
Luigi Tittarelli
15. The Joint-Family Household in Eighteenth-Century Southern Italian Society
William A. Douglass
16. Marital Property in an Apulian Town During the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
Anthony H. Galt
17. Capital and Gendered Interest in Italian Family Firms
Sylvia Junko Yanagisako
18. Property, Kinship, and Gender: A Mediterranean Perspective
Caroline B. Brettell
References
Index