Family and Civilization is the magnum opus of Carle Zimmerman, a distinguished sociologist who taught for many years at Harvard University. In this unjustly forgotten work Zimmerman demonstrates the close and causal connections between the rise and fall of different types of families and the rise and fall of civilizations, particularly ancient Greece and Rome, medieval and modern Europe, and the United States. Zimmerman traces the evolution of family structure from tribes and clans to extended and large nuclear families to the small nuclear families and broken families of today. And he shows the consequences of each structure for the bearing and rearing of children; for religion, law, and everyday life; and for the fate of civilization itself. Originally published in 1947, this compelling analysis predicted many of today’s cultural and social controversies and trends, including youth violence and depression, abortion and homosexuality, the demographic collapse of Europe and of the West more generally, and the displacement of peoples. This new edition, part of ISI Books’ Background series, has been edited and abridged by cultural commentator James Kurth of Swarthmore College and includes essays on the text by Kurth, Allan Carlson, and Bryce Christensen.

This new volume offers an alternative view of human civilization in a globalizing age, exploring the uneven pace of development of human societies, particularly in the last two centuries, and arguing that this is leading to a global civil war.

Romanticism and Civilization examines romantic alternatives to modern life in Rousseau’s foundational novel Julie. It argues that Julie is a response to the ills of modern civilization, and that Rousseau saw that the Enlightenment’s combination of science and of democracy degraded human life by making it bourgeois. The bourgeois is man uprooted by science and attached to nothing but himself. He lives a commercial life and his materialism and calculations penetrate all aspects of his existence. He is neither citizen, nor family man, nor lover in any serious sense: his life is meaningless. Rousseau’s romanticism in Julie is an attempt to find connectedness through the sentiments of private life and wholeness through love, marriage, and family.

Originally published: New York: Harper, 1947.

Based on the William E. Massey Sr. lectures in the history of American Civilization.

Victor Hanson shows that the "Greek revolution" was not the rise of a free and democratic urban culture, but rather the historic innovation of the independent family farm."--BOOK JACKET.

(Dover thrift editions).

The Natural Family Where It Belongs emphasizes the vital bond of the natural family to an agrarian-like household, where the "sexual" merges with the "economic" through marriage and child-rearing and where the family is defined by its material efforts. This agrarianism is alive and well in twenty-first century America and Europe. Allan C. Carlson argues that recreating a family-cantered economy portends renewal of the true democracy dreamed of by Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. Critically well received, this paperback edition makes The Natural Family Where It Belongs available to teachers and students of twentieth century American social history and the American family system. It will also be welcomed by practitioners involved with the "new agrarian" revival of the last twenty-five years. As Carlson demonstrates, agrarian households represent the touchstones of a sustainable human future. Written by one of the most prestigious and respected scholars in the field, The Natural Family Where It Belongs will influence how today's family life is viewed in America and abroad. This volume is the latest in Transaction's Marriage and Family Studies series.

This culinary history unwraps the extensive culture surrounding the tamale, bringing together writers, artists, journalists, and Texas' regional leaders to honor this traditional Latin American dish. It is filled with family stories, recipes, and artwork, and also celebrates tamaladas--the large family gatherings where women prepare the tamales for the Christmas festivities. Humorous and colorful, this collection reveals the importance of community and good food.

Winner of the 2014 John Collier Jr. Award Winner of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century cross-cuts the ranks of important books on social history, consumerism, contemporary culture, the meaning of material culture, domestic architecture, and household ethnoarchaeology. It is a distant cousin of Material World and Hungry Planet in content and style, but represents a blend of rigorous science and photography that these books can claim. Using archaeological approaches to human material culture, this volume offers unprecedented access to the middle-class American home through the kaleidoscopic lens of no-limits photography and many kinds of never-before acquired data about how people actually live their lives at home. Based on a rigorous, nine-year project at UCLA, this book has appeal not only to scientists but also to all people who share intense curiosity about what goes on at home in their neighborhoods. Many who read the book will see their own lives mirrored in these pages and can reflect on how other people cope with their mountains of possessions and other daily challenges. Readers abroad will be equally fascinated by the contrasts between their own kinds of materialism and the typical American experience. The book will interest a range of designers, builders, and architects as well as scholars and students who research various facets of U.S. and global consumerism, cultural history, and economic history.