Gathering together a wealth of information, Beatrice Gottlieb presents every aspect of a rich and vital subject with clarity and fairness. Her generously illustrated book deals with the households of the wealthy and the poor, courtship and marriage, the care and training of children, and the bonds (and strains) of kinship. The matter of inheritance receives special attention, as it played a substantial role in a world permeated by rank and status, and its importance ave the family a peculiar social and economic significance. The book also deals with ideas about the family and the values is embodies. Famous names and events of history make brief walk-on appearances in this book: Henry VIII's divorce, Louis XIV's mistresses, Mary Wollstonecraft's death in childbirth. But the author's emphasis is on the more ordinary people, whose everyday lives strike a responsive chord in all of us.