The formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have experienced a remarkable demographic transformation in the past twenty years. On many dimensions of fertility and family formation, much of the region now looks like Western Europe-below-replacement fertility...

This book explains in fascinating detail how economic and social transformations in pre-1600 Japan led to an industrious revolution in the early modern period, and how the fruits of the Industrious Revolution are what have supported Japan since the eighteenth century, improving living standards...