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
The authors have assembled powerful new data sets that shed light on questions about demographic behavior in the context of household and community, and permit comparative analysis across Europe and Asia. This is the richest and most important work in population history in many years.
Ronald Lee, Professor of Demography and Economics, University of California
There is much talk about comparative history, but very little systematic effort to do it. Bengtsson, Campbell, Lee, and their collaborators have produced a work that is truly remarkable in its conception and execution, and a model for future generations.
Richard Easterlin, University Professor and Professor of Economics, University of Southern California
A major milestone in preindustrial population history.
Choice
The book is amazingly rich and fascinating and represents a major advance in historical demography in data collection, theory, and methods.
Ronald Lee and Richard H. Steckel
Historical Methods
China is undergoing the greatest transformation in its history. Life Under Pressure is a fundamental contribution to understanding the background of this change. It is a deep and serious book that should be read by all those interested in China's past and future.
Alan Macfarlane, Professor of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University
This book is a comprehensive discussion of current knowledge on the interrelationships among nutrition, health, and economic growth by leading investigators of the subject. It is essential reading for those interested in both the theory and the empirics of the synergisms that govern these relationships.
Robert W. Fogel, Center for Population Economics, Graduate School of Business, The University of Chicago, 1993 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences
