In Family and Civilization , the distinguished Harvard sociologist Carle 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 smaller, often broken families of today. And he shows the consequences of each structure for 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 controversies and trends concerning youth violence and depression, abortion, and homosexuality, the demographic collapse of the West, and the displacement of peoples. This new edition has been edited and abridged by James Kurth of Swarthmore College. It includes essays on the text by Kurth and Bryce Christensen and an introduction by Allan C. Carlson. Carle C. Zimmerman was an eminent professor of sociology at Harvard University and the founder of the subdiscipline of rural sociology. Among his many other books are The Changing Community and Marriage and the Family: A Text for Moderns . James Kurth is the Claude C. Smith Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Swarthmore College and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Center for the Study of America and the West. He has written for the National Interest , Foreign Policy , Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs , and other periodicals. Allan C. Carlson is the John A. Howard Distinguished Fellow for Family and Religious Studies at the International Organization for the Family and editor of The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy . FAMILY AND CIVILIZATION By Carle Zimmerman ISI BOOKS Copyright © 2008 ISI Books All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-933859-37-8 Contents Introduction by Allan C. Carlson...........................................................................................vii1) Introduction............................................................................................................12) Family Types and Civilization...........................................................................................213) Fluctuation of the Family Bond..........................................................................................374) From Late Roman to Trustee Familism.....................................................................................455) The Trustee Family of the Dark Ages.....................................................................................576) Rise of the Modern Domestic Family......................................................................................757) The Rise of Modern Atomism from the Reformation to the Nineteenth Century...............................................938) Philosophy and Familism in the Nineteenth Century.......................................................................1239) The Nineteenth-Century Atomistic Family.................................................................................14110) Disruption of Public Control of Familism...............................................................................16511) The Western Family and the Purposes of Family Sociology................................................................17912) The Dynamics of Familism...............................................................................................18513) The Trustee Family System-Causal Analysis..............................................................................20314) The Domestic Family System-Causal Analysis.............................................................................22115) The Atomistic Family System-Causal Analysis............................................................................24116) The Future of Family and Civilization..................................................................................263CRITICAL ESSAYSFAMILY AND CIVILIZATION: CARLE ZIMMERMAN CONFRONTS THE WEST'S THIRD FAMILY CRISIS by Bryce Christensen.....................287DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY: THE FATE OF THE WESTERN FAMILY AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION by James Kurth..............................305Notes......................................................................................................................321Index......................................................................................................................327 Chapter One INTRODUCTION No problem is more interesting and vital to us than that of the family. The child is born into a family and sees the world through its eyes. His introduction to civilization is through the family. At first he is only a child in a system of social relations consisting of a