The history of the family lacks a history. Sociologists and historians rarely cite interpretative literature written before the last third of the twentieth century. Curiously, at least for the discipline of history, recent scholars have seemingly regarded older perceptions as relics of a prescientific past.

This foray into intellectual history will demonstrate that ignoring the history of this field also distorts it. My case study considers what is widely regarded as the largest revision in thinking about the history of the family—the complete overthrow of what William J. Goode, the sociologist most credited with its rejection, has derisively called (1970: 6) “the classical family of Western nostalgia.” Kertzer and Hogan (1988: 84) have aptly summarized the chief elements of the interpretation overturned by the revisionists: “Until recently, the popular image of Western family history pictured people as living in large extended family units that had multiple functions. With the advent of industrialization, it was thought, this system was transformed into one characterized by small, nuclear family units having more specialized functions.”

Height at young and adult ages reflects the cumulative nutritional experience of the individual both during the growth years and during the fetal period. Hence, mean height in a population is not only an indicator of economic fortune but also a predictor of morbidity and mortality (Waaler 1984; Barker et al. 1990; Fogel, Haines, et al. 1991; Costa 1993). Economic historians have been able to use time series of heights to describe trends in economic well-being and in mortality (Fogel, Engerman, and Trussell 1982; Margo and Steckel 1982; Fogel 1986; Brinkman et al. 1988; Floud et al. 1990). Cross-sectional analyses of the determinants of heights have provided clues to changes in morbidity and mortality trends. Investigations of heights have taken advantage of the significant quantities of military records that are available. The data obtained from military muster rolls for the United States consist of name, age, height, occupation, place and date of enlistment, and place of birth.

Sometime After 1968, analysts and participants began to speak of “new social movements” that worked outside formal institutional channels and emphasized lifestyle, ethical, or “identity” concerns rather than narrowly economic goals. A variety of examples informed the conceptualization. Alberto Melucci (1988: 247), for instance, cited feminism, the ecology movement or “greens,” the peace movement, and the youth movement. Others added the gay movement, the animal rights movement, and the antiabortion and prochoice movements. These movements were allegedly new in issues, tactics, and constituencies. Above all, they were new by contrast to the labor movement, which was the paradigmatic “old” social movement, and to Marxism and socialism, which asserted that class was the central issue in politics and that a single political economic transformation would solve the whole range of social ills. They were new even by comparison with conventional liberalism with its assumption of fixed individual identities and interests. The new social movements thus challenged the conventional division of politics into left and right and broadened the definition of politics to include issues that had been considered outside the domain of political action (Scott 1990).

The concepts of “repertoires” and “cycles” of collective action, as popularized in recent years in the works of Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, respectively, are the focal point of this essay. I explore these concepts in the context of a set of data based on 7,664 incidents of social conflict and political protest occurring in Japan during the period 1590–1877, in order to investigate their temporally and spatially comparative robustness.

Central american events of recent decades show human behavior at both its most courageous and its most barbaric. The opposing phenomena of popular mobilization and state terrorism pose some of the most profound questions that can be asked by social science. How can we explain the willingness of political elites and their agents to slay thousands—tens of thousands—of their fellow human beings, even when their victims are unarmed? Conversely, how do we account for ordinary people undertaking collective action under circumstances so dangerous that even their lives are at risk?