Richard Grassby. Kinship and Capitalism: Marriage, Family, and Business in the English-Speaking World, 1580-1740.

(Woodrow Wilson Center Series.) Cambridge and New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 2000. xx + 505 pp. append. bibl. index. $64.95. ISBN: 0-521-78203-1.

The advent of the computer has provided social historians with the means to organize and analyze far greater amounts of archival data about the past than was ever before possible. Richard Grassby's monograph, Kinship and Capitalism: Marriage, Family, and Business in the English-Speaking World, 1580-1740, is an excellent example of this phenomenon, both as a model for historical analysis and for what it is possible to learn from such an approach.

Kinship and Capitalism is organized into three parts: "Marriage," "The Business Family," and "The Family Business," based upon interpretations of data concerning some 28,000 London businessmen and their families drawn from the period between 1580 and 1740. Grassby argues that the causes of English economic development during this period should be based on extensive empirical data rather than theoretical models. Using data drawn from commercial trade company records, heraldic visitations, parish records, government records, and personal inventories and accounts, Grassby concludes that "whiggish" ideas of inexorable progress from an agrarian-communitarian to a capitalist-individualist England obscure a more complex reality. These sources reveal to him that familial capitalism, not possessive individualism, promoted economic growth in the era from Elizabeth I to George I.

Grassby defines business as "a network of family partnerships" and differentiates business families from landed ones on the transferal of assets at death. His introduction provides a useful summary of the problems which historians should consider when they seek to create a database of historical data. He notes, for example, the limitations of statistical correlation as evidence for causation, the necessity to augment any one archival source material with extensive cross-referencing in other sources, the subjectivity of categories of analysis, and the value of combining both quantitative and qualitative data in the same database.

Information from the database is compared with qualitative information from prescriptive literature and diaries to conclude that the experience of these 28,000 early modern London business families could simultaneously manifest both traditional patriarchal/extended structure and capitalist "possessive individual" behavior. "Marriage" examines both how marriages were made and conducted by these business families, and concludes that they were infinitely diverse "partnerships based on reconciliation of differences." "The Business Family" considers the relationships among all members of the family, both nuclear and kin networks, and concludes that the business family increasingly withdrew into itself during this period. "The Family Business," investigates the family, whether nuclear or extended, as a business "institution" in which value was placed in training the young, forming partnerships, and making choices in the allocation of capital. The final section, "Capitalism and the Life Cycle," considers the economic significance of the how assets were transferred from one generation to the next. In the end, Grassby asserts that the early modern economy could have grown, if slowly, without corporations and individuals, but could not have grown at all without the family networks manifested in businesses. Two appendices provide data about how Grassby has organized the statistical basis from which the conclusions of this book are drawn. Appendix A lists the wide variety of archival sources which comprise the relational database. Appendix B describes the coding criteria used for the database.

Grassby's book makes a significant contribution to raising questions about historiographical approaches to the social and economic history of England over the last fifty years or so. However, it also raises questions about his own organizational choices. For example, there is no explanation offered as to why the study is set between 1580-1740, or why the data was divided for analysis into the periods 1580-1659, 1659-17407 Why was social status not defined according to the standard four contemporary categories and why did the category of gentleman not include businessmen or professional men with ascriptive titles or gentle status? Even more troubling is the fact that Grassby indicates that social ascriptions in heraldic visitations are taken at face value, whereas businessmen described as gentle in wills or depositions were disallowed from the category. The veracity and comprehensiveness of many of the printed Harleian Society visitations have been challenged which raises concerns about the validity of his basic data. Such questions need to be addressed with the same rigor which was employed on the selection and organization of the archival data.

REBECCA S. MORE

Brown University