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9783111009247

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Part I *** ""This is a brilliant book that deals with far more than incest. The author analyses countless literary texts, unveils the hidden premises of scholarly debates, and traces the making of anxieties and taboos. He mobilizes tools of cultural history to answer a fundamental question of social history: How were societies since the Middle Ages transformed?"" - Simon Teuscher, Professor for Medieval History, University of Zurich *** ""A Delicate Choreography is an awe-inspiring achievement. David Warren Sabean's epic study of kinship and incest ranges widely and expertly over centuries and regions drawing materials from a vast number of disciplines--history, anthropology, biblical exegesis, sociology, demography, philosophy, history, popular culture, theology, biology, law, and literature. Deep research and omnivorous reading seamlessly combine in a book filled with surprising insights and fascinating interpretations on almost every page. A Delicate Choreography is a monument to the skills and imagination of a major scholar. Bravo."" - Mary Lindemann, Professor Emerita for History of Religion and Europe, University of Miami and past president of the American Historical Association *** ""What did theologians, lawyers, poets, pastors, physicians, historians and biologists mean when they talked about incest for the past five hundred years, and why were they so preoccupied with some kinds of forbidden relationships and not with others? Sabean uses incest discourses to develop a backdoor approach to studying kinship. The result is a richly layered, anthropologically-informed history that connects shifting preoccupations and obsessions with changing configurations of family and kinship."" - Gadi Algazi, Professor for Medieval and Early Modern History, Tel Aviv University *** Part II *** ""In this second part of his epic trilogy on Kinship Practices and Incest Discourses in the West since the Renaissance, David Sabean's bow stretches from literary descriptions of mother-son relations to the biology of sexuality and reproduction as seen by the medical sciences, from the interrelation between nature and nurture to the geneticization of incest. The undertaking is as daring as it testifies to the mastery of the author. David Sabean's opus magnum is the fascinating fruit of a life-long effort to understand Western kinship structures and practices."" - Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science *** ""Taboos on marriages between close relatives were based on moral, social, and political grounds long before incest became a biological issue and taboos were justified by the deleterious mental and physical effects of such liaisons on the next generation. How this change came about in Western societies is one of a myriad of fascinating questions addressed in this monumental history of incest."" - Soraya de Chadarevian, University of California *** Part III *** ""A virtuoso performance by David Sabean, one of the world's most accomplished social historians. Many have critiqued biologically reductionist accounts of incest prohibitions, but who else could shed light on the current media obsession with erotic relations between siblings by placing it in a lineage with medieval takes on impediments to marriage, Baroque conceptions of prudence, the late-20th-century proliferation of family forms, and the impact of theoretical trends in the social sciences? His elegantly argued account links historical shifts in the scope and application of rules about incest to matters that go well beyond the household, placing concerns about social reproduction at the heart of the perpetual reconfiguration of intimacies."" - Kath Weston, Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia and British Academy Global Professor, Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh

"Part I *** ""This is a brilliant book that deals with far more than incest. The author analyses countless literary texts, unveils the hidden premises of scholarly debates, and traces the making of anxieties and taboos. He mobilizes tools of cultural history to answer a fundamental question of social history: How were societies since the Middle Ages transformed?"" - Simon Teuscher, Professor for Medieval History, University of Zurich *** Part II *** ""In this second part of his epic trilogy on Kinship Practices and Incest Discourses in the West since the Renaissance, David Sabean's bow stretches from literary descriptions of mother-son relations to the biology of sexuality and reproduction as seen by the medical sciences, from the interrelation between nature and nurture to the geneticization of incest. The undertaking is as daring as it testifies to the mastery of the author. David Sabean's opus magnum is the fascinating fruit of a life-long effort to understand Western kinship structures and practices."" - Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science *** ""Taboos on marriages between close relatives were based on moral, social, and political grounds long before incest became a biological issue and taboos were justified by the deleterious mental and physical effects of such liaisons on the next generation. How this change came about in Western societies is one of a myriad of fascinating questions addressed in this monumental history of incest."" - Soraya de Chadarevian, University of California *** Part III *** ""A virtuoso performance by David Sabean, one of the world's most accomplished social historians. Many have critiqued biologically reductionist accounts of incest prohibitions, but who else could shed light on the current media obsession with erotic relations between siblings by placing it in a lineage with medieval takes on impediments to marriage, Baroque conceptions of prudence, the late-20th-century proliferation of family forms, and the impact of theoretical trends in the social sciences? His elegantly argued account links historical shifts in the scope and application of rules about incest to matters that go well beyond the household, placing concerns about social reproduction at the heart of the perpetual reconfiguration of intimacies."" - Kath Weston, Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia and British Academy Global Professor, Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh"

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David Warren Sabean, Henry J. Bruman Endowed Professor Emeritus of German History, Department of History, UCLA, Los Angeles.

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