Over the past few years, the cross-disciplinary field of research devoted to family and kinship history in Europe has seen the emergence of an important stream of studies developing wide-ranging comparative perspectives on great spaces and long periods. Their hypotheses and interpretative models differ somewhat with regard of the factors taken into account, and of the underlying logic identified for these processes. The first part of this volume presents a broad discussion of these recent developments. The chapters in the second part have an alpine focus and are dealing more or less directly with the theoretical framework proposed by Dionigi Alberas book, Au fil des generations. The contributions to the third part of the book are further opening up the field. They leave the alpine terrain and are dedicated to some European contexts, with approaches that are generally influenced by the experience of Alberas analysis of Alpine Europe.

Dionigi Albera is Director of Research in the Centre national de recherches scientifique CNRS. He directs also the Institut d'Ethnologie Méditerranéenne, Européenne et Comparative IDEMEC at the Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l'homme MMSH (Université Aix-Marseille). Luigi Lorenzetti is Professor at the Università della Svizzera italiana where he is also coordinator of the Laboratorio di Storia delle Alpi, Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio. Jon Mathieu is Professor of History at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, of the University of Lucerne.