Overview

This highly original book - the first in a series analysing historical population behaviour in Europe and Asia - pioneers a new approach to the comparative analysis of societies in the past. Using techniques of event history analysis, the authors examine 100,000 life histories in 100 rural communities in Western Europe and Asia to analyse the demographic response to social and economic pressures. In doing so they challenge the accepted Eurocentric Malthusian view of population processes and demonstrate that population behaviour has not been as uniform as previously thought - that it has often been determined by human agency, particularly social structure and cultural practice. The authors examine the complex relationship between human behaviour and social and economic environment, analysing age, gender, family, kinship, social class and social organisation, climate, food prices and real wages to compare mortality responses to adversity. Their research at the individual, household and community levels challenges the previously accepted characterisations of social and economic behaviour in Europe and Asia in the past. The originality of the analysis as well as the geographic breadth and historical depth of the data make Life Under Pressure a significant advance in the field of historical demography. Its findings will be of interest to scholars in economics, environmental studies, demography, history and sociology as well as the general reader interested in these subjects.

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9780262025515

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Reviews

In this remarkable volume, Bengtsson, Campbell, Lee, and their collaborators compare population dynamics in Europe and Asia in the centuries just before industrialization. Using both causal models and local studies, they show how household structures, cultural values, and domestic decisions produced variations in mortality across age, gender, and income levels. Combining exceptional geographic breadth with rigorous attention to local details, these studies are essential for understanding fundamental patterns of life in preindustrial societies. --Jack A. Goldstone, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University

Author Information

Tommy Bengtsson is Professor of Economic History and Demography, Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden. Cameron Campbell is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. James Z. Lee is Professor and Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

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