Transitions: The Family and the Life Course in Historical Perspective covers a life-course analysis in relation to history and the application of the approach to a common data set for late 19th-century American communities in Essex County, Massachusetts. The book discusses the life-course development in relation to historical change; the historical changes in age configurations along the life course; and the use of demographic scaffolding for analyzing family behavior and life-course transitions. The text also describes models of economic behavior to the historical patterns; the choices that individuals and families make in the timing of different life-course transitions; and the scheduling of life-course transitions. Marriage; children's entry into and exit from school; patterns of women's entry into the labor force; and the affect on household structure of transitions into old age are also considered. Historians, sociologists, and demographers will find the book invaluable.