Distinct Inheritances: Property, Family and Community in a Changing Europe: 2 (Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia) - Hardcover

Grandits

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 382587334X ISBN 13: 9783825873349

Publisher: Lit Verlag, 2006

Synopsis

Questions about the respective roles of private and state property have been at the center of European political life for the past century. Much less attention has been given to the ways in which rights to property have been transmitted over time and how different inheritance traditions have affected European societies. The chapters in this volume draw on historical and anthropological research to show how inheritance practices connect the intimate organization of domestic life with questions of economic development, political structure, and religious belief. The book traces the history of inheritance from the coming of Christianity, through the imposition and dissolution of different forms of feudalism, to the development of the modern economy. Several chapters address the impact of communism and its collapse, and demonstrate how ideas about the inheritance of property and status are continuing to shape, and be shaped by, economic and social changes in a continent that is moving beyond the ideological dichotomies of the Cold War.

Hannes Grandits teaches European history at University of Graz, Austria. Patrick Heady teaches anthropology at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lit Verlag
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 382587334X
• ISBN 13: 9783825873349
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 440
• Editor: Grandits Hannes, Heady Patrick