Families, Status and Dynasties: 1600-2000

This book takes a novel approach to family, exploring in detail how status is inherited and maintained within families; the process of upward social mobility; and how the roots of social decline start within families. The author also examines how rigidly status equivalence determines choice of spouse. Exceptionally extensive in its coverage, the book ranges from the seventeenth century to the present day, across a large range of European countries and part of the United States, and across s...