This is a concise and well-organized survey of how families, broadly understood, have shaped and been shaped by historical forces from the beginning of recorded history to the present. This book is a part of The New Oxford World History series, which seeks to explore the connectedness and interactions demonstrated throughout the totality of the human experience. Given the stated objectives of the series, the authors of The family, Professors Mary Jo Maynes and Ann Waltner, have successfully achieved these goals. This relatively slim volume surveys a lengthy timeframe while providing informative case studies in each of the chapters drawn from a variety of geographical locales. The approach allows the reader to understand the familiar patterns played by family units across time and around the world, while also clearly seeing the complications, the differences, and the unique changes emerging from locality to locality, from time to time.

Maynes and Waltner's overarching thesis is that the family is a historical construct rather than something that is ‘natural’. Moreover, they assert that the family has been as much an agent of historical change as an entity impacted by historical forces. The notion that the family, just like the nation-state, is a historical, human construct may strike many scholars as unremarkable – but for many teaching undergraduate survey courses in world history and global studies, this is perhaps one of the most critical, and difficult, ideas to convey to students. In a very real sense, the fundamental power of ‘the family’ arises precisely because it has convinced so many that it is a natural, static unit, that it has been created since the beginning of time, and that it has remained unchanged through thousands of years of history. The volume's thesis, consistently argued throughout, and backed up with evidence from across the globe, is therefore an important contribution, particularly for those who care about undergraduate teaching.

There are seven main chapters in The Family, with a brief preface and an epilogue. The first chapter covers the history of the family up to 5000 BCE, the second to 1000 CE. Chapter Three considers the emergence of politics and kinship c.3000 BCE to 1450 CE. Chapters Four and Five discuss early modern families (1400–1750) and global markets and families (1600–1850). Chapters Six and Seven address the impact of revolutionary times on families (1750–1920) and of the era of state population management on families (1880 to the present).

Each of these chapters is amply supplied with case studies from around the world. As the work progresses, one can clearly see the major underlying themes and categories of analysis. Some of the main examples from this study are: changing gender roles, influence by and towards religion, the impact upon state formation and political legitimacy, the role played by agricultural development and industrialization, the complex interactions between familial practices and race and nationality, and the impact upon and by family upon colonization, imperial expansions, and ultimately globalization. On the issue of gender roles, for example, Maynes and Waltner argue convincingly that different locales, responding to different historical contingencies, made very different choices. On the lengthy and complicated relationship between familial ties and politics, there is clearly a broad patterns of states attempting to co-opt familial structures and ties, though familial and kinship practices have also had a strong impact on how political authority has been shaped and communicated throughout world history.

This book is suitable for an undergraduate course, or an advanced high school class. It is also useful for instructors on all levels preparing a survey course on world history and global studies where the evolution of the family is a recurring sub-theme. Given its broad coverage, it is also a good companion to a broader, more traditional world history survey text. Depending on the instructor's objectives, because of the broad interdisciplinary range exhibited in this volume, one can also see the utility of assigning the book, or parts of it, to courses on anthropology, sociology, psychology, politics, and economics.