1 University of Minnesota History Department HIST3797 ... - Users

Fall 2012. HIST3797: History of Population 

Semester dates 

Teaching dates: September to December 

Final examinations: XX – XX December 

Professor: Dr. Evan Roberts 

Room: Heller Hall 1141 

Phone: 612-625-7703 

Email: eroberts@umn.edu (this is the best way 

to get in touch with me) 

University of Minnesota 

History Department 

HIST3797: History of Population 

Fall semester 2012 

Lecture Times: Monday and Wednesday, 1:00 

– 2:15pm 

Venue: TC West Bank 

Computer lab: Several computer labs are scheduled on Wednesdays, please see class schedule. 

Office hours: Mondays from 2:30 – 4:00 in Heller 1141, and by appointment. Make 

appointments at this URL: http://eroberts.youcanbook.me/ 

Course delivery: This course lasts fifteen weeks, the entire fall semester. In a typical week 

Mondays are lectures, and Wednesdays are labs or more practical lectures. 

Communication of additional information: Information about any course changes will be 

announced in lectures and on Moodle, or sent via email. 

Image: “Chart showing the distribution by age and sex of deaths occurring during the census year ending June 1 st ” Statistical atlas 

of the United States based on the results of the ninth census 1870 with contributions from many eminent men of science and 

several departments of the government. New York, 1874. 

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Moodle and email 

There will be a HIST3797 Moodle site. We will be using Moodle for specified tasks and 

assignments. Moodle will also be used to host the course outline (should you misplace it), link to 

additional material, and to contact the class via email. The Moodle class-email function uses 

your student email (@umn.edu). 

Please set up your student email account to redirect messages to your preferred email address if 

you do not regularly check your student email account. You should be checking your email 

regularly for course related messages. 

Email response policy 

You should check your email once every weekday. I expect that if I send an email about a class 

happening more than two days ahead you will read it and take any action required. (e.g; if I send 

a message on Wednesday afternoon about Monday’s discussion, you should have read it before 

Monday). 

In return, you can expect that if you email me about HIST3797 I will reply within 24 hours (and 

hopefully sooner). The aim of this policy is to facilitate quick communication, but without raising 

the unreasonable expectation that you (or I) will always be checking email. 

I encourage you to submit class-related queries via email. A written record of the discussion 

avoid confusion later. Also, if the answer to your question would be interesting to the rest of the 

class, email allows me to easily expand the discussion. You can be sure that if I forward 

correspondence to the rest of the class I will either ask your permission, or edit your question so 

it doesn’t identify you. 

COURSE CONTENT 

This course is an introduction to population history through analysis of controversial debates in 

the field. We look briefly at prehistoric and early modern population issues in the first month of 

the course, and spend the last 11 weeks of the class looking at topics related to the modern rise of 

population — the extraordinary growth in the world’s population in the past 500 years. 

Significant population growth is related to significant changes in human lives — how old we can 

expect to live, how many children we have, and where we live. These changes are related to 

many of the social and economic changes you will study in other history or social science classes, 

and are fundamental to understanding the modern world that you live in. We also spend some 

time thinking about how we measure change, and some time in the computer lab letting you 

explore demographic concepts in practice. 

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COURSE OBJECTIVES 

Students passing the course will understand 

v Patterns and causes of population change in the past millennium 

v Basic demographic concepts and measures 

v The history of demography as an applied social science 

v The importance of demographic change for society 

v How societies have reacted to demographic change 

Students passing the course will gain skills in 

v Critically evaluating the arguments of different historians and demographers 

v Selecting appropriate methods for analysing historical evidence 

v Creating historical interpretations by analysing and synthesizing multiple perspectives 

v Understanding numbers, tables, and figures as evidence 

v Accessing print and visual information from the library and the internet 

v Presenting their findings in oral and written forms 

Expected workload 

In accordance with CLA Guidelines, you are expected to devote 9 hours per week to HIST3797. 

This includes 2.5 hours of lectures per week. 

Readings 

The required readings are listed below, and are available online at no cost. The hyperlinks 

following each article will get you the PDF if you are logged in on campus. If you want to get 

access from home, you will have to either save the article while on campus or authenticate 

through the library website and search for the journal or use the citation linker. 

Recommended Reading: Further reading relevant for particular topics will be suggested on 

Moodle or in lectures. 

ASSESSMENT 

There are five pieces of assessment in HIST3797. 

v One essay of 750 words, due October X (20% of grade) 

v Country study of 1250 words and [presentation to class], due December X (30% of grade) 

v Mid-term exam on October X(15% of grade) 

v Contribution of questions for final exam question bank due on November 28 (10% of grade) 

v Final (cumulative) exam on XX December at TIME (25% of grade) 

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASSESSMENT AND COURSE OBJECTIVES 

HIST3797 is designed to introduce you to important 

v Empirical developments in the history of human population (what happened?) 

v Concepts in demography and social science (how do we measure things?) 

v Debates about what happened and why (historians call this “historiography”) 

The first essay gives you an opportunity to explore a debate in population history that you find 

particularly interesting. You will first demonstrate your understanding of the readings (what do 

these authors say?) and critically evaluate their arguments. Who is right and who is wrong? Why? 

What kind of evidence was not persuasive? 

The country study lets you put your research skills into practice, and apply concepts we have 

learned in lectures to understanding the demographic history of a single country (but you will 

understand it in comparison to others we have read about). You will select the country from a list 

provided by the professor, that is designed to ensure you can find adequate sources on the topic 

using various databases and the University of Minnesota library. 

The mid-term exam will test your knowledge of facts and concepts covered in lectures, computer 

labs, and readings. The questions will be of the “short answer” style requiring you to remember 

fundamental concepts and important facts from the first half of the course. A list of potential 

question topics will be circulated to the class in advance of the midterm exam so that you can 

prepare thoroughly. 

For the final exam you have the opportunity to create the “question bank.” Every student will 

contribute a small number of key concepts, definitions, facts and questions to the instructor, who 

will combine these into a master question list for the class to study for the final exam. I reserve 

the right to add additional questions to the list of potential questions if the class does not identify 

important concepts. 

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ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION REQUIREMENTS 

Lectures: As young adults you are responsible for making up your own mind about your time. 

But you should know when making your decisions that, on average, students who study for an 

extra hour a day have a GPA that is one-third of a grade point higher (e.g; the extra hour of study 

raises your GPA from a B to a B+). 1 I recommend that you attend as many lectures, discussions, 

and computer labs as you can to get the most out of the class. 

In particular, the questions for the mid-term and final exams will be drawn from material 

presented in lectures. 

Computer labs: Please try to attend the computer labs. Model answers to required questions 

from the computer labs will be provided in the labs or in subsequent lectures, and will be part of 

the midterm and final exams. 

PENALTIES FOR LATE WRITTEN WORK 

Students will be penalised for late submission of work—a deduction of 5% for the first day late, 

and 2% per day thereafter, up to a maximum of 8 days, with weekends included in the 

calculation of days late. However, penalties may be waived if there are valid grounds, e.g., illness 

(presentation of a medical certificate will be necessary) or similar other contingencies. In such 

cases prior information will be necessary. It is in your interests to contact the professor as soon as 

a potential problem emerges – not right before the deadline. The earlier you can talk to me about 

late assignments, the better. I understand that “life happens,” and that sometimes it is hard to 

meet all your deadlines. Please come and see me, and we can discuss your options for doing your 

best to complete the work in a timely fashion. If you do need to request an extension, I will ask 

that you write me an email so that we both have a record of what your new deadline is. 

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND PLAGIARISM 

Academic integrity is about honesty – put simply it means no cheating. Academic integrity 

means that university staff and students, in their teaching and learning are expected to treat others 

honestly, fairly and with respect at all times. It is not acceptable to mistreat academic, intellectual 

or creative work that has been done by other people by representing it as your own original work. 

Academic integrity is important because it is the core value on which the University’s learning, 

teaching and research activities are based. The University of Minnesota’s reputation for academic 

integrity adds value to your degree. 

1 Ralph Stinebrickner and Todd R. Stinebrickner, (2008) "The Causal Effect of Studying on Academic 

Performance," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy: Vol. 8 : Iss. 1 (Frontiers), Article 14. 

http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol8/iss1/art14/ 

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The University defines plagiarism as presenting someone else’s work as if it were your own, 

whether you mean to or not. “Someone else’s work” means anything that is not your own idea. 

Even if it is presented in your own style, you must acknowledge your sources fully and 

appropriately. This includes: 

v Material from books, journals or any other printed source 

v The work of other students or staff 

v Information from the internet 

v Software programs and other electronic material 

v Designs and ideas 

v The organisation or structuring of any such material 

Find out more about plagiarism, how to avoid it and penalties, on the University’s website: 

http://writing.umn.edu/tww/plagiarism/definitions.html 

Plagiarism is prohibited at the University of Minnesota and is not worth the risk. Any enrolled 

student found guilty of plagiarism will be subject to disciplinary procedures under the Student 

Conduct Code and may be penalized severely. Consequences of being found guilty of plagiarism 

can include: 

v An oral or written warning 

v Academic probation 

v Suspension from the course or the University. 

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES 

The University has a policy of reasonable accommodation of the needs of students with 

disabilities. The policy aims to give students with disabilities an equal opportunity with all other 

students to demonstrate their abilities. If you have a disability, impairment or chronic medical 

condition (temporary, permanent or recurring) that may impact on your ability to participate, 

learn and/or achieve in lectures and tutorials or in meeting the course requirements, please 

contact the Professor as early in the course as possible. 

Alternatively you may wish to approach Disability Services to confidentially discuss your 

individual needs and the options and support that are available. Disability Services are located at 

McNamara Alumni Center, 200 Oak St. SE. See their website for more information: 

http://ds.umn.edu/. 

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SCHEDULE 

Week 1. 

September 5 Introduction to course / Agricultural Revolution and demographic theory 

Week 2. 

September 10. Lecture: The Agricultural Revolution and demographic theory (continued) 

September 12. Sources and Methods: Hands-on lab exercise 1: Online tabulation of census 

microdata 

Week 3 

September 17. Lecture: Black Death and crisis mortality 

September 19. Methods and Sources: Concept of a Population; Principles of Demographic 

Measurement; Age, Period, and Cohort 

Week 4. 

September 24. Lecture: Pre-Columbian population and demographic collapse in the Americas 

September 26. Sources and Methods: Hands-on lab exercise 2: Introduction to analysis in Excel 

Week 5. 

October 1. Sources and Methods: Basic Demographic Measures: crude rates; age-specific rates; 

total fertility rate 

October 3. Guest Lecture: Robert McCaa on Aztec Families 

Week 6. 

October 8. Lecture: Northwest European Family System 

October 10 Sources and Methods: Hands-on lab exercise 3: Synthetic cohort measures 

Week 7. 

October 15. Guest Lecture: Christopher Isett on The Early Modern Chinese Demographic System 

October 17. Sources and Methods: Basic Demographic Measures: standardization; life table 

Week 8. 

October 22. Sources and Methods: Preindustrial Demographic Techniques: Family 

Reconstitution, Genealogies, and Aggregate Analysis of Parish Registers 

October 24. Mid-term exam 

Week 9. 

October 29. Lecture: Demography of Slavery and the Slave Trade 

October 31. Sources and Methods: Hands-on lab exercise 4: Life Tables 

Week 10. 

November 5: The ‘Population Revolution’ in 18 th century England 

November 7. Sources and Methods: Censuses and census-based demographic measures 

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Week 11. 

November 12. Lecture: The Demographic Transition in Europe and America 

November 14. Sources and Methods: Hands-on lab exercise 5: Making maps in Social Explorer 

Week 12. 

November 19. Lecture: Fertility busts and booms in the developed world since the nineteenth 

century 

November 21. Sources and Methods: Standardization and Indexes 

Week 13. 

November 26. The Fertility Transition in Developing Countries 

November 28. Sources and Methods: Hands-on lab exercise 6: Standardization exercise 

Week 14. 

December 3. Lecture: Sex, love, contraception, and population history. 

December 5. Lecture: Health transitions 

Week 15. 

December 10. Lecture: Nutrition, heights and living standards 

December 12. Study session for final. 

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CORE READINGS 

Week 1: Paleodemography 

Robert McCaa. 2002. “Paleodemography of the Americas: From Ancient Times to Colonialism 

and Beyond,” in The backbone of history: Health and nutrition in the Western Hemisphere. 

Edited by R. H. Steckel and J. C. Rose, pp. 94–126. 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Text: http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/paleodem.doc 

Tables: http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/paleodem.xls 

Figures: http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/paleo500.ppt 

Week 2: Agricultural Revolution 

Jared Diamond. 2002. “Evolution, Consequences, and Future of Plant and Animal 

Domestication.” Nature 418: 700-707. 

http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/images/c/c9/Diamond_Nature_02.pdf 

George J. Armelogos, Alan H. Goodman, and Kenneth H. Jacobs. 1991. “The Origins of 

Agriculture: Population Growth During a Period of Declining Health.” Population and 

Environment 13:9-22. 

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m12v36v06608277g/fulltext.pdf 

John C. Caldwell and Bruce K. Caldwell. 2003. “Was there a Neolithic Mortality Crisis?” 

Journal of Population Research 20: 153-168. 

http://www.jpr.org.au/upload/20-2_153-168.pdf 

Week 3: Black Death 

Samuel K. Cohn. 2002. “The Black Death: End of a Paradigm.” American Historical Review 107: 

703-738. 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3091083.pdf 

John Theilman and Frances Cate. 2007. “A Plague of Plagues: The Problem of Plague Diagnosis 

in Medieval England.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37: 371-393. 

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jinh.2007.37.3.371 

Week 4: Pre-Colombian Population 

Henry F. Dobyns. 1966. “An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate.” 

Current Anthropology 7: 395-416. 


Massimo Livi-Bacci. 2006. “The Depopulation of Hispanic America after the Conquest.” 

Population and Development Review 32: 199-232. 

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118551037/PDFSTART 

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David Henige. 2008. “Recent Work and Prospects in American Indian Contact Population.” 

History Compass 6: 183-206. 


Week 5: Aztec Families 

Robert McCaa. 2003. “The Nahua Calli of Ancient Mexico: Household, Family, and Gender.” 

Continuity and Change 18: 23-48 

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=168431 

(click on pdf, right-hand menu bar) 

E.A. Hammel and Petrer Laslett. 1974. “Comparing Household Structure Over Time and 

Between Cultures.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16: 73-109. 


Week 6: Northwest European Family System 

Lutz K. Berkner. 1972. “The Stem Family and the Developmental Cycle of the Peasant 

Household: An Eighteenth-Century Austrian Example.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 

77, No. 2. (Apr., 1972), pp. 398-418. 


Steven Ruggles. 2009. “Reconsidering the Northwest European Family System.” Working Paper. 

http://umn.edu/~ruggles/Articles/NW%20European%20Family%20System.pdf 

Week 7. Malthusian Theory in Early Modern China 

James Lee and Wang Feng, “Malthusian models and Chinese Realities: The Chinese 

Demographic System: 1700-2000,” Population and Development Review 25, 1 (1999), 33-65. 


Arthur P. Wolf and Theo Engelen. 2008. “Fertility and Fertility Control in Pre-Revolutionary 

China.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 38: 345-375. 

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_interdisciplinary_history/v038/38.3wolf.pdf 

Campbell, Cameron, Wang Feng, and James Lee. (2002). “Pretransitional Fertility in China.” 

Population and Development Review 28.4:735–750. 

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3092786 

Week 8. Family Reconsititution 

E. A. Wrigley. 1997. “How Reliable is Our Knowledge of the Demographic Characteristics of the 

English Population in the Early Modern Period?” 

The Historical Journal 40: 571-595. 


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Steven Ruggles. 1999. “The Limitations of English Family Reconstitution.” Continuity and 

Change 14: 105-130. 

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=69508 

(click on pdf, right-hand menu bar) 

Week 9. Demography of Slavery and the Slave Trade 

David Eltis. 2001. “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A 

Reassessment.” William and Mary Quarterly 58.1 

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/58.1/eltis.html 

Michael Tadman. 2000. “The Demographic Cost of Sugar: Debates on Slave Societies and 

Natural Increase in the Americas.” American Historical Review 105: 1534-1575 


Week 10. The Population Revolution in England 

Emily Grundy. 2005. “The McKeown Debate: Time for Burial.” International Journal of 

Epidemiology 34: 529-533 

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/34/3/529 

Bernard Harris. 2004. “Public Health, Nutrition, and the Decline of Mortality: The McKeown 

Thesis Revisited.” Social History of Medicine 17: 379-407. 

http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/17/3/379 

Week 11. The Demographic Transition in Europe and America 

Dudley Kirk. 1996. “Demographic Transition Theory.” Population Studies 50: 

361-387. 


J. David Hacker. 2003. “Rethinking the ‘Early’ Decline of Marital Fertility in the 

United States.” Demography 40: 605-620. 

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/demography/v040/40.4hacker.pdf 

Week 12. Fertility busts and booms in the developed world since the nineteenth century 

Guinnane, T. W., Okun, B. S., and Trussell, J. 1994. “What do we know about the timing of the 

European fertility transition?” Demography, 41. 1–20. 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2061905 

Fred C. Pampel; H. Elizabeth Peters. 1995. “The Easterlin Effect.” Annual Review of Sociology, 

21:. 163-194. 


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Richard A. Easterlin. 1978. “Presidential Address: What Will 1984 Be Like? Socioeconomic 

Implications of Recent Twists in Age Structure.” Demography 15: 397-432. 


Week 13. The Fertility Transition in Developing Countries 

Ronald Lee. 2003. “The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change.” 

Journal of Economic Perspectives 17: 167-190 


John Bongaarts. 2008. “Fertility Transitions in Developing Countries: Progress or Stagnation?” 

Studies in Family Planning 39: 105-110. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4465.2008.00157.x/abstract 

John Bongaarts. 2009. Human population growth and the demographic transition. Philosophical 

Transactions of the Royal Society. B. Biological Sciences. 364: 2985-2990. 

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1532/2985.short 

Week 14. Sex, love, contraception, and population history. 

Annie Besant. 1878. The Law of Population, New York: 26-47. 

http://books.google.com/books?id=D1nVAAAAIAAJ 

Bernarr Macfadden, “Pros and cons of birth control” pp.142-51 in Womanhood and Marriage, 

New York, 1918. 

http://books.google.com/books?id=3wbaAAAAMAAJ 

Joan M. Jensen, 1993. “The Death of Rosa” Agricultural History. 67: 1-12. 


Week 14. Health transitions 

Omran, A.R. 1971. "The epidemiological transition: A theory of the epidemiology of population 

change", The Milbank Quarterly 83: 731–57 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0009.2005.00398.x/full 

Murray CJL, Chen LC (1992) “Understanding morbidity change.” Population and 

Development Review, 18: 481-503. 


Joshua A. Salomon and Christopher J. L. Murray. "The Epidemiologic Transition Revisited: 

Compositional Models for Causes of Death by Age and Sex." Population and Development 

Review 28, no. 2 (2002): 205-28. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2002.00205.x/pdf 

Week 15: Nutrition, heights and living standards 

Richard H. Steckel. "Stature and the Standard of Living." Journal of Economic Literature 33, no. 4 

(1995): 1903-40. 

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John Komlos. "Shrinking in a Growing Economy? The Mystery of Physical Stature During the Industrial 

Revolution." Journal of Economic History 58, no. 3 (1998): 779-802. 


R. W. Fogel and D. L. Costa. "A Theory of Technophysio Evolution, with Some Implications for 

Forecasting Population, Health Care Costs, and Pension Costs." Demography 34, no. 1 (1997): 49-66. 


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SUPPLEMENTAL READING 

Population Handbook, Population Reference Bureau (4 th edition) 

This item is intended as a reference and may be useful for the homework and labs. 

For your two essay assignments, you should read 3 or 4 articles in addition to the core readings. 

The following are suggestions, organized by weekly topic. 

Week 1. Paleodemography 

Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel, Stephan Naji, and Matthew Bandy. 2008. “Demographic and Health 

Changes During the Transition to Agriculture in North America.” Chapter 10 in Jean-Pierre 

Bocquet-Appel, ed., Recent Advances in Paleodemography. New York: Springer. 

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p66818011060v864/fulltext.pdf 

Lyle W. Konigsberg and Susan R. Frankenberg. 2003. “Paleodemography: Not Quite Dead.” 

Evolutionary Anthropology 3: 92-105. 


Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel and Claude Masset. 1982. “Farewell to Paleodemography.” Journal 

of Human Evolution 11: 321-333. 

link 

Dennis P. Van Gerven and George J. Armelagos. 1983. “Farewell to Paleodemography? Rumors 

of its Death have been Greatly Exaggerated.” Journal of Human Evolution 12: 353-360. 

link 

Week 2: Agricultural Revolution 

Michael Lipton. 1989. “Responses to Rural Population Growth: Malthus and the Moderns.” 

Population and Development Review, Vol. 15, Supplement: Rural Development and Population, 

pp. 215-242. 


Jared Diamond and Peter Bellwood. 2003. “Farmers and Their Languages: The First 

Expansions.” Science 300: 597 - 603 

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/300/5619/597.pdf 

Ola Olsson and Douglas A. Hibbs. 2005. “Biogeography and long-run economic development.” 

European Economic Review 49: 909-938 

link 

Smith, V., 1975. “The economics of the primitive hunter culture, Pleistocene extinctions, and the 

rise of agriculture.” Journal of Political Economy 84 4, pp. 727–756. 


Kremer, M., 1993. “Population growth and technological change: One million B.C. to 1990.” 

Quarterly Journal of Economics 108: 681–716. 

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Jacob L. Weisdorf. 2005. “From Foraging To Farming: Explaining the Neolithic Revolution” 

Journal of Economic Surveys 19: 561-586. 


Week 3. Black Death 

George Christakos, R.A. Olea, and H.-L. Yua. 2007. “Recent results on the spatiotemporal 

modelling and comparative analysis of Black Death and bubonic plague epidemics.” Public 

Health 121: 700-720. 

link 

Andrew Noymer. 2007. “Contesting the Cause and Severity of the Black Death: A Review 

Essay.” Population and Development Review 33: 616-626 


Note: link begins on page 607; you must page down to page 616. 

George Christakos and Ricardo A. Olea. 2005. “New space-time perspectives on the propagation 

characteristics of the Black Death epidemic and its relation to bubonic plague.” Stochastic 

Environmental Research and Risk Assessment 19: 307-314. 

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v5g0375687063w47/fulltext.pdf 

Eric Lewin Altschulera and Yvonne M. Kariuk. 2008. “Did the 1918 flu virus cause the Black 

Death?” Medical Hypotheses 71: 986-987. 

link 

Week 4. Pre-Columbian Population 

David S. Jones. 2003. “Virgin Soils Revisited.” William and Mary Quarterly 60: 703-742. 

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/60.4/jones.html 

Rudolph A. Zambardino. 1980. “Mexico's Population in the Sixteenth Century: Demographic 

Anomaly or Mathematical Illusion?” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11: 1-27. 


John D. Daniels. 1992. “The Indian Population of North America in 1492.” William and Mary 

Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 49: 298-320. 


Wilbur R. Jacobs. 1974. “The Tip of an Iceberg: Pre-Columbian Indian Demography and Some 

Implications for Revisionism.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. 31: 123-132. 


Francis J. Brooks. 1993. “Revising the Conquest of Mexico: Smallpox, Sources, and 

Populations.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24: 1-29. 


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David Henige. 1978. “On the Contact Population of Hispaniola: History as Higher Mathematics. 

“ Hispanic American Historical Review 58: 217-237. 


R. A. Zambardino. 1978. “Critique of David Henige's ‘On the Contact Population of Hispaniola: 

History as Higher Mathematics’” Hispanic American Historical Review 58: 700-708. 


David Henige. 1978. David Henige’s Reply to Zambardino. Hispanic American Historical 

Review 58: 709-712. 


W. George Lovell. 1992. “‘Heavy Shadows and Black Night’: Disease and Depopulation in 

Colonial Spanish America.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82: 426-443. 


Robert McCaa. 1995. “Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophe in 

Mexico.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25: 397-431. 


William M. Denevan. 1992. “The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492.” 

Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82: 369-385. 


Noble David Cook. 2002. “Sickness, Starvation, and Death in Early Hispaniola.” Journal of 

Interdisciplinary History 32: 349-386 


Weeks 5 and 6. Historical Family Demography 

Steven Ruggles. 1994. The Transformation of American Family Structure. American Historical 

Review 99: 103-128. 

http://users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggles/Articles/AHR.pdf 

John Hajnal. 1982. “Two Kinds of Preindustrial Household Formation System.” 

Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, No. 3. (Sep., 1982), pp. 449-494. 


Tamara K. Hareven. 1994. “Aging and Generational Relations: A Historical and Life Course 

Perspective.” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 20. (1994), pp. 437-461. 

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.so.20.080194.002253?cookieSet=1 

Arland Thornton. 2001. “The Developmental Paradigm, Reading History Sideways, and Family 

Change.” Demography - Volume 38, Number 4, November 2001 

http://muse.uq.edu.au/journals/demography/v038/38.4thornton.html 

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David I. Kertzer. 1991. Household History and Sociological Theory 

Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 17. (1991), pp. 155-179. 

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.so.17.080191.001103 

Tamara K. Hareven. 1991.The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change 

The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 1. (Feb., 1991), pp. 95-124. 

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=120&sid=b44193af-cf68-4427-a0fd- 

7a35537a6c7f%40sessionmgr102 

Steven Ruggles. 2003. Multigenerational Families in Nineteenth-Century America 

Continuity and Change 18: 139-165 

http://users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggles/multigenerational.pdf 

Week 7. China 

Demographic Conditions and Multi-generation Households in Chinese History. Results from 

Genealogical Research and Microsimulation 

Zhongwei Zhao 

Population Studies, Vol. 48, No. 3. (Nov., 1994), pp. 413-425. 

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032- 

4728%28199411%2948%3A3%3C413%3ADCAMHI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1 

China's Fertility Transition through Regional Space: Using GIS and Census Data for a Spatial 

Analysis of Historical Demography 

G. William Skinner 

Social Science History - Volume 24, Number 3, Fall 2000 – Article 

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_science_history/v024/24.3skinner.html 

Two Centuries of Mortality Change in Central Japan: The Evidence from a Temple Death 

Register 

Ann Bowman Jannetta; Samuel H. Preston 



4728%28199111%2945%3A3%3C417%3ATCOMCI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L 

The Population Statistics of China, A.D. 2-1953 

John D. Durand 

Population Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3. (Mar., 1960), pp. 209-256. 


4728%28196003%2913%3A3%3C209%3ATPSOCA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B 

Parity Progression and Birth Intervals in China: The Influence of Policy in Hastening Fertility 

Decline 

Griffith Feeney; Wang Feng 

Population and Development Review, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar., 1993), pp. 61-101. 

17



7921%28199303%2919%3A1%3C61%3APPABII%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D 

Changes in Family Structure in China: A Simulation Study 

Zeng Yi 

Population and Development Review, Vol. 12, No. 4. (Dec., 1986), pp. 675-703. 


7921%28198612%2912%3A4%3C675%3ACIFSIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8 

Five Decades of Missing Females in China 

Ansley J. Coale; Judith Banister 

Demography, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Aug., 1994), pp. 459-479. 


3370%28199408%2931%3A3%3C459%3AFDOMFI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W 

Week 8. Family Reconstitution 

English Population History from Family Reconstitution: Summary Results 1600-1799 

E. A. Wrigley; R. S. Schofield 

Population Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Jul., 1983), pp. 157-184. 


4728%28198307%2937%3A2%3C157%3AEPHFFR%3E2.0.CO%3 

Migration, Marriage, and Mortality: Correcting Sources of Bias in English Family 

Reconstitutions 

Steven Ruggles 



4728%28199211%2946%3A3%3C507%3AMMAMCS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H 

English population history from family reconstitution 1580-1837 

P. Razzell 

Social History of Medicine 11 (3): 469-500 

Bias in Age at Marriage in Family Reconstitutions: Evidence from French- Canadian Data 

Bertrand Desjardins 



4728%28199503%2949%3A1%3C165%3ABIAAMI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W 

The Effect of Migration on the Estimation of Marriage Age in Family Reconstitution Studies 

E. A. Wrigley 



4728%28199403%2948%3A1%3C81%3ATEOMOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z 

18


Alice Bee Kasakoff and John W. Adams 

The effect of migration on ages at vital events: A critique of family reconstitution in historical 

demography 

European Journal of Population 

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r06575lw71034r76/ 

Week 9. Slave Trade 

Epidemiology and the Slave Trade Author(s): Philip D. Curtin Source: Political Science 

Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 2 (Jun., 1968), pp. 190-216 Published by: The Academy of Political 

Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2147089 

A Peculiar Population: The Nutrition, Health, and Mortality of American Slaves from Childhood 

to Maturity Author(s): Richard H. Steckel Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 46, 

No. 3 (Sep., 1986), pp. 721-741 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the 

Economic History Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2121481 

Fertility Differentials between Slaves in the United States and the British West Indies: A Note on 

Lactation Practices and Their Possible Implications Author(s): Herbert S. Klein and Stanley L. 

Engerman Source: The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Apr., 1978), 

pp. 357-374 Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Stable 

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1921839 

Slave Women and Reproduction in Jamaica, c.1776–1834. 

MORGAN, KENNETH 

History; Apr2006, Vol. 91 Issue 302, p231-253, 23p 

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=13&sid=d3d5a0ff-50f8-4c48-a4cc- 

222bc0eb45f3%40sessionmgr104 

Week 10. Population Revolution 

Population Change in Eighteenth-Century England. A Reinterpretation Author(s): P. E. Razzell 

Source: The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 2 (1965), pp. 312-332 

Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Economic History Society Stable URL: 


Family Limitation and the English Demographic Revolution: A Simulation Approach Author(s): 

N. F. R. Crafts and N. J. Ireland Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Sep., 

1976), pp. 598-623 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History 

Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118847 

Some Neglected Factors in the English Industrial Revolution Author(s): John T. Krause Source: 

The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Dec., 1959), pp. 528-540 Published by: 

Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association Stable URL: 


19


Changes in English Fertility and Mortality, 1781-1850 Author(s): J. T. Krause Source: The 

Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1958), pp. 52-70 Published by: 

Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Economic History Society Stable URL: 


English Population in the Eighteenth Century Author(s): H. J. Habakkuk Source: The Economic 

History Review, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1953), pp. 117-133 Published by: Blackwell 

Publishing on behalf of the Economic History Society Stable URL: 


Medical Evidence Related to English Population Changes in the Eighteenth Century Author(s): 

Thomas McKeown and R. G. Brown Source: Population Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Nov., 1955), pp. 

119-141 Published by: Population Investigation Committee Stable URL: 


Family Limitation in Pre-Industrial England: A Reappraisal Author(s): Richard B. Morrow 

Source: The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Aug., 1978), pp. 419-428 

Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Economic History Society Stable URL: 


Family Limitation in Pre-Industrial England Author(s): E. A. Wrigley Source: The Economic 

History Review, New Series, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1966), pp. 82-109 Published by: Blackwell 

Publishing on behalf of the Economic History Society Stable URL: 


The Growth of Population in Eighteenth-Century England: A Conundrum Resolved Author(s): E. 

A. Wrigley Source: Past and Present, No. 98 (Feb., 1983), pp. 121-150 Published by: Oxford 

University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: 


Week 11. Demographic Transition 

Were Women Present at the Demographic Transition?: Questions from a Feminist Historian to 

Historical Demographers 

Alison MacKinnon 

Gender and History 7 (1995), 222-240. 

The Idea of Demographic Transition and the Study of Fertility Change: A Critical Intellectual 

History 

Simon Szreter 

Population and Development Review, Vol. 19, No. 4. (Dec., 1993), pp. 659-701. 


7921%28199312%2919%3A4%3C659%3ATIODTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P 

The Mechanisms of Demographic Change in Historical Perspective 

J. C. Caldwell 


20



4728%28198103%2935%3A1%3C5%3ATMODCI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S 

Another Look at Coale's Indices of Fertility, If and Ig 

Wetherell, Charles 

Social Science History - Volume 25, Number 4, Winter 2001 - Article 

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_science_history/v025/25.4wetherell.html 

The Decline of Fertility in Europe 

Ansley J. Coale; Susan Cotts Watkins; Rudolf Andorka; David Levine; Charles Tilly 

Population and Development Review, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Jun., 1986), pp. 323-340. 


7921%28198606%2912%3A2%3C323%3ATDOFIE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 

Child naming, religion, and the decline of marital fertility in nineteenth-century America. 

Hacker, J. David 

History of the Family, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1999, 339-65 

Week 12. Fertility busts and booms in the developed world since the nineteenth century 

Coale, A., ‘The decline of fertility in Europe since the eighteenth century as a chapter in human 

demographic history’, in A.Coale and S. C.Watkins, eds., The decline of fertility in Europe 

(Princeton, 1986), pp. 1–30. (E-Reserve) 

A Reconsideration of Easterlin Cycles 

D. P. Smith 

Population Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2. (Jul., 1981), pp. 247-264. 


4728%28198107%2935%3A2%3C247%3AAROEC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I 

On Two Schools of the Economics of Fertility 

Warren C. Sanderson 

Population and Development Review, Vol. 2, No. 3/4. (Sep. - Dec., 1976), pp. 469-477. 


7921%28197609%2F12%292%3A3%2F4%3C469%3AOTSOTE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 

The American Baby Boom in Historical Perspective 

Richard A. Easterlin 

The American Economic Review, Vol. 51, No. 5. (Dec., 1961), pp. 869-911. 


8282%28196112%2951%3A5%3C869%3ATABBIH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W 

The Economic Theory of Fertility Over Three Decades 

Warren C. Robinson 


21



4728%28199703%2951%3A1%3C63%3ATETOFO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W 

Are Babies Consumer Durables?: A Critique of the Economic Theory of Reproductive 

Motivation 

Judith Blake 


Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2173350.pdf 

Week 13. The Fertility Transition in Developing Countries 

The Causes of Stalling Fertility Transitions 

John Bongaarts 

Studies in Family Planning, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 2006), pp. 1-16 


Theories of Fertility Decline and the Evidence from Development Indicators 

John Bryant 

Population and Development Review 

Volume 33 Issue 1, Pages 101 – 127 


John C. Caldwell. "The Global Fertility Transition: The Need for a Unifying Theory." Population 

and Development Review 23, no. 4 (1997): 803-12. 


Week 14. Health transitions 

Johansson SR (1991) The health transition: the cultural inflation of morbidity during the 

decline of mortality. Health Transition Review, 1(1):39-68. 

http://dspace.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/41184/1/Johanss1.pdf 

James F. Fries. "The Compression of Morbidity." Milbank Quarterly 61, no. 3 (1983): 397-419. 


G Caselli, F Meslè, and J Vallin. "Epidemiologic Transition Theory Exceptions." Genus 58, no. 1 

(2002): 9-51. 

http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/workshops/020619_paper40.pdf 

J Vallin and F Meslé. "Convergences and Divergences in Mortality. A New Approach to Health 

Transition." Demographic Research 2 (2004): 9-43. 

http://www.demographic-research.org/special/2/2/S2-2.pdf 

James C. Riley. "The Risk of Being Sick: Morbidity Trends in Four Countries." Population and 

Development Review 16, no. 3 (1990): 403-32. 

22



David Cutler, Angus Deaton, and Adriana Lleras-Muney. "The Determinants of Mortality." The 

Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, no. 3 (2006): 97-120. 

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.20.3.97 

Michael R. Haines. "The Urban Mortality Transition in the United States, 1800-1940." Annales 

de démographie historique, no. 1 (2001): 33-64. (Moodle) 

Week 15. Nutrition, heights and living standards 

Michael R. Haines, Lee A. Craig, and Thomas Weiss. "The Short and the Dead: Nutrition, Mortality, and 

the "Antebellum Puzzle" in the United States." Journal of Economic History 63, no. 2 (2003): 382-413. 


Richard H. Steckel. "Biological Measures of the Standard of Living." Journal of Economic Perspectives 

22, no. 1 (2008): 129–52. 

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.22.1.129 

Richard H. Steckel. "Heights and Human Welfare: Recent Developments and New Directions." 

Explorations in Economic History 46, no. 1 (2009): 1-23. (here) 

Carlos Bozzoli, Angus Deaton, and Climent Quintana-Domeque. "Adult Height and Childhood Disease " 

Demography 46, no. 4 (2009): 647-69. 

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/demography/v046/46.4.bozzoli.pdf 

Areendam Chanda, Lee Craig, and Julianne Treme. "Convergence (and Divergence) in the Biological 

Standard of Living in the USA, 1820–1900." Cliometrica 2, no. 1 (2008): 19-48. 

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c80025769ql9821q/fulltext.pdf 

R.M. Henderson. "The Bigger the Healthier: Are the Limits of BMI Risk Changing over Time?" 

Economics and Human Biology 3, no. 3 (2005): 339-66. (Moodle) 

John Komlos and Benjamin E. Lauderdale. "Underperformance in Affluence: The Remarkable Relative 

Decline in U.S. Heights in the Second Half of the 20th Century." Social Science Quarterly 88, no. 2 

(2007): 283-305. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2007.00458.x/pdf 

R.H. Steckel. "A Peculiar Population: The Nutrition, Health, and Mortality of American Slaves from 

Childhood to Maturity." The Journal of Economic History 46, no. 3 (1986): 721-41. 


23


ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS 

Essay #1. Pick a topic from the lectures and readings for weeks 1 through 8. Select 2 or 3 

supplemental readings on the topic, drawn from the list provided, or your own research. Write a 

critical essay of 750 words describing your reaction to the readings and lecture. Who is right and 

who is wrong? Why? What kind of evidence did you find most persuasive? What evidence was 

unpersuasive? Write you essay in Word or another major word-processing program and email it 

to eroberts@umn.edu by 11pm on 22 March 2011. 

Essay #2. For the second essay we want pretty much the same thing as for the first, but we want 

you to be more focused. Pick a topic from the lectures and readings for weeks 1 through 8. You 

must write on a different topic than your first essay. 

The essay must be based on at least six articles, no more than two of which are required readings, 

and at least one article must be from outside the required or supplemental reading list. List a 

bibliography of the readings you used at the end of the essay. 

Identify a specific issue about which there is disagreement in the various articles. For example, if 

you were writing about the agricultural revolution, you might address the issue of whether 

mortality increased or decreased with the coming of agriculture. Or you could look at whether 

agricultural innovation caused population growth or the other way around. The more specifically 

you can define the debate, the easier it will be to write an excellent essay. 

Once you have identified a specific controversial issue, write a paragraph briefly summarizing 

the controversy, noting where each author stands. Then write a couple of paragraphs that identify 

the kinds of evidence each author uses, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each kind of 

evidence. Use citations to identify the source of quotations, facts, or arguments. You may use 

any recognized style for the citations, but I recommend the Chicago author-date system since it is 

simple and easy (http://library.williams.edu/citing/styles/chicago2.php). You may also use 

information and opinions from lecture, but be sure to cite them. 

Conclude with a paragraph summarizing your own viewpoint on the issue. 

Your essay should be approximately 1250 words. Write your essay in Word or another major 

word-processing program and email it to eroberts@umn.edu by 11pm on 6 May 2011. 

24

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