'This book makes a powerful case for the use of mixed methods, a case that focuses on their advantages for, among other things, research design, data quality, and casual modelling. I particularly recommend the book to new investigators and those still at an early stage of their career. … if new investigators follow Axinn and Pearce's example, demography (and other social sciences) will probably discover more about social processes than they otherwise would. … I was particularly impressed that the likelihood of surprises was taken into designing the questionnaires for the neighbourhood histories, data for which were collected in three rounds.' Population Studies