The bibliographic holdings of family histories at the Library of Congress. Entries are arranged alphabetically of the works of those involved in Genealogy and also items available through the Library of Congress.

This dictionary contains data not only on the origins of French surnames in Québec and Acadia, a great many of which eventually spread to many parts of North America, but also on those which arrived in the United States directly from various French-speaking European and Caribbean countries. In addition to providing the etymology of the original surnames, it also lists the multifarious variants that have developed over the last four centuries. A unique feature of this work in comparison to other onomastics dictionaries is the inclusion of genealogical information on most of the Francophone migrants to this continent, something which has been rendered possible not only by the excellent record-keeping in French Canada since the very beginnings of the colony, but also through the explosion of such data on the internet in the last couple of decades. In sum, this dictionary serves the dual purpose of providing information on the meanings of French family names on the North American continent, as well as on the migrants who brought them there.

The stigmatization as 'bastards' of children born outside of wedlock is commonly thought to have emerged early in Medieval European history. Christian ideas about legitimate marriage, it is assumed, set the standard for legitimate birth. Children born to anything other than marriage had fewer rights or opportunities. They certainly could not become king or queen. As this volume demonstrates, however, well into the late twelfth century, ideas of what made a child a legitimate heir had little to do with the validity of his or her parents' union according to the dictates of Christian marriage law. Instead a child's prospects depended upon the social status, and above all the lineage, of both parents. To inherit a royal or noble title, being born to the right father mattered immensely, but also being born to the right kind of mother. Such parents could provide the most promising futures for their children, even if doubt was cast on the validity of the parents' marriage. Only in the late twelfth century did children born to illegal marriages begin to suffer the same disadvantages as the children born to parents of mixed social status. Even once this change took place we cannot point to 'the Church' as instigator. Instead, exclusion of illegitimate children from inheritance and succession was the work of individual litigants who made strategic use of Christian marriage law. This new history of illegitimacy rethinks many long-held notions of medieval social, political, and legal history.

The Material Family is a bold new reading of the family, focusing on “new” or “post-nuclear,” “flexible” family forms such as gay family, divorce-extended family, and transnational family. Reading across a range of texts from high theory to literature and popular films, the book crosses disciplinary boundaries to offer a highly innovative and dynamic approach to changes in gender and other family relations. Unlike most books in the fields of cultural and family studies, The Material Family provides an historical and materialist argument connecting the changes within family to underlying shifts in material, labor relations in global capitalism. The “post-nuclear” family is not only an affective space, Torrant argues, but one whose affects are themselves fundamentally shaped by class. The Material Family is a must-read for anyone who wants to venture beyond the surfaces of family life to the deeper-lying relations that have made the family and its new forms among the most important spaces of social life. Its readers will include not only students and researchers in the fields of education, cultural theory and cultural studies, women’s studies, sociology, and anthropology, but also general readers interested in understanding contemporary families and their struggles.

The concept of sovereignty is central to international relations theory and theories of state formation, and provides the foundation of the conventional separation of modern politics into domestic and international spheres. In this book Jens Bartelson provides a critical analysis and conceptual history of sovereignty, dealing with this separation as reflected in philosophical and political texts during three periods: the Renaissance, the Classical Age, and Modernity. He argues that the concept of sovereignty and its place within political discourse are conditioned by philosophical and historiographical discontinuities between the periods, and that sovereignty should be regarded as a concept contingent upon, rather than fundamental to, political science and its history.