This book provides a valuable introduction to historical and sociological studies of family change in Japan. The author discusses the organization and assumptions of the academic disciplines, introduces resources for cross—cultural research on family change, and summarizes research results in areas such as infanticide, preindustrial mobility, family size and structure, family relations, mate selection, and the elderly. Summaries of Japanese studies and translated tables and graphs are integrated with materials from relevant English language publications from the perspective of life course theory. The book points out difficulties in cross—cultural research but stresses the vital contributions of such insights for the understanding of family change.