PETER L. LARSON, Rethinking the Great Transition: Community and Economic Growth in County Durham, 1349–1660

Abstract

sises the ways in which communities cemented newborn infants into communal knowledge and memory situating them geographically and through connections to the parents, in both legitimate and illegitimate births. Giving Birth draws together personal literature, folklore collections, and court records to masterfully articulate that childbirth opens a window onto the everyday family and community interactions, obligations, and bonds of later eighteenthcentury society. The book significantly nuances and updates the existing historiography on the topic of birthing rituals in the early modern era. Fox is to be commended on producing a book that is engaging and accessible, one that will appeal to students whilst becoming a cornerstone of research on the social history of reproduction.