Die menschliche Familie nach ihrer Entstehung und natürlichen Entwickelung

Hellwald, Friedrich von, 1842-1892Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
1.3M words
Chapters
127

Tags

Foreign Language Books Social Sciences AnthropologyHuman OriginsFamily SystemSocial EvolutionSocial ObservationWestern ThoughtAcademic Monograph19th CenturyCross-Cultural ViewEvolutionary Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Die menschliche Familie nach ihrer Entstehung und natürlichen EntwickelungAuthor: Hellwald, Friedrich von, 1842-1892,Language: German, Class: HQ: Social sciences: The family, Marriage, Sex and Gender, Release Date: Sep 10, 2016

Editor's review

This is a German work by Friedrich von Hellwald discussing the origin and natural development of the human family. It belongs to the family, marriage, and gender studies category within the social sciences and was released as a free e-book by Project Gutenberg. Written in the nineteenth century, the book carries the anthropological and social-evolutionary perspective of its time. For today's readers, its value lies more in the history of scholarship and the history of ideas: it allows us to observe how early scholars understood the evolution of family forms and how the then-popular evolutionary framework was applied to social research. Readers should maintain a critical awareness and distinguish views situated in their historical context from contemporary research conclusions. The book is suitable as German academic reading material and as a topical reference for readers interested in the history of sociology or the history of the family. As a public-domain e-book, it is easy to obtain and suits close topical reading rather than reading from cover to cover.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Understand the background of nineteenth-century social evolutionism first, then enter the main text to situate the views.
  2. Mark statements that carry period limitations while reading, and compare them with contemporary research.
  3. Read closely chapter by chapter by topic; there is no need to read the whole book through.
  4. Read alongside survey works on family history or the history of anthropology.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100
  101. 101
  102. 102
  103. 103
  104. 104
  105. 105
  106. 106
  107. 107
  108. 108
  109. 109
  110. 110
  111. 111
  112. 112
  113. 113
  114. 114
  115. 115
  116. 116
  117. 117
  118. 118
  119. 119
  120. 120
  121. 121
  122. 122
  123. 123
  124. 124
  125. 125
  126. 126
  127. 127

FAQ

Are the views in this book still applicable today? The book was written in the nineteenth century and adopts the social-evolutionary framework of its time; some assertions carry obvious period limitations. Its value for reading today lies mainly in the history of scholarship and the history of ideas. It is advisable to read it critically and compare it with contemporary family research findings rather than cite it directly as a current conclusion.
What level of German is needed to read this book? This is a German academic work with long sentences and considerable terminology. Upper-intermediate or advanced German reading ability is recommended, or reading with the help of dictionaries and translation tools. Beginners in German will find it quite difficult; they may first choose introductory materials to understand the background before attempting it.
Is this book suitable as an introductory text for family studies? Not really. This is a nineteenth-century primary source, not a contemporary introductory textbook, and its framework and conclusions are outdated. To get started in family studies, it is better to read contemporary survey works first and then use this book as supplementary material in the history of scholarship, to understand the thinking and limitations of early researchers.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Hellwald, Friedrich von, 1842-1892 Author · Austrian · 1842–1892

Friedrich von Hellwald (1842–1892) was an Austrian geographer and writer on cultural history. He wrote for a general readership, weaving geographical knowledge, national customs, and the course of cultural development into readable narratives, and his works on cultural history found a certain audience in the late nineteenth century. One of his works is held in this collection: Die menschliche Familie nach ihrer Entstehung und natürlichen Entwickelung, whose title indicates a focus on the origin and natural development of the human family, a subject at the intersection of cultural history and early studies of human society. Public information about the details of his life is limited, and this entry makes no conjectures; readers seeking to learn about his academic background and specific career should consult specialized literature. On the whole, he represents a type of writing that popularized geographical and cultural-historical knowledge in his era.