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Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500.

By: Material type: TextSeries: Publisher: London : Taylor & Francis Group, 2005Copyright date: ©2005Edition: 2nd edDescription: 1 online resource (253 pages)Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9781317868040
Subject(s): Genre/Form: DDC classification:
  • 305.23/09182/1
Online resources:
Contents:
Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Plates -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1 Introduction -- The historiography of childhood -- 2 Children and childhood in ancient and medieval Europe -- The classical inheritance -- Christianity -- The middle ages -- 3 The development of a middle-class ideology of childhood, 1500-1900 -- Humanism -- Protestantism -- Catholicism -- The eighteenth century -- The influence of Romanticism -- 4 Family, work and school, 1500-1900 -- The peasant family -- Proto-industrialisation -- Industrialisation -- Demography -- Community -- Schooling -- Interest and emotion -- 5 Children, philanthropy and the state in Europe, 1500-1860 -- Children and poverty -- Schooling -- 1750-1860 -- 6 Saving the children, c.1830-c.1920 -- Child labour -- Street children -- Cruelty to children -- Philanthropy, the state and children -- State concerns and children's rights -- 7 'The century of the child'? -- Science, experts and childhood -- Children and social policy -- Parents and children -- Childhood under threat -- 8 Conclusion -- Guide to further reading -- Index.
Summary: This book investigates the relationship between ideas about childhood and the actual experience of being a child, and assesses how it has changed over the span of five hundred years. Hugh Cunningham tells an engaging story of the development of ideas about childhood from the Renaissance to the present, taking in Locke, Rosseau, Wordsworth and Freud, revealing considerable differences in the way western societites have understood and valued childhood over time. His survey of parent/child relationships uncovers evidence of parental love, care and, in the frequent cases of child death, grief throughout the period, concluding that there was as much continuity as change in the actual relations of children and adults across these five centuries. For undergraduate courses in History of the Family, European Social History, History of Children and Gender History.
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Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Plates -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1 Introduction -- The historiography of childhood -- 2 Children and childhood in ancient and medieval Europe -- The classical inheritance -- Christianity -- The middle ages -- 3 The development of a middle-class ideology of childhood, 1500-1900 -- Humanism -- Protestantism -- Catholicism -- The eighteenth century -- The influence of Romanticism -- 4 Family, work and school, 1500-1900 -- The peasant family -- Proto-industrialisation -- Industrialisation -- Demography -- Community -- Schooling -- Interest and emotion -- 5 Children, philanthropy and the state in Europe, 1500-1860 -- Children and poverty -- Schooling -- 1750-1860 -- 6 Saving the children, c.1830-c.1920 -- Child labour -- Street children -- Cruelty to children -- Philanthropy, the state and children -- State concerns and children's rights -- 7 'The century of the child'? -- Science, experts and childhood -- Children and social policy -- Parents and children -- Childhood under threat -- 8 Conclusion -- Guide to further reading -- Index.

This book investigates the relationship between ideas about childhood and the actual experience of being a child, and assesses how it has changed over the span of five hundred years. Hugh Cunningham tells an engaging story of the development of ideas about childhood from the Renaissance to the present, taking in Locke, Rosseau, Wordsworth and Freud, revealing considerable differences in the way western societites have understood and valued childhood over time. His survey of parent/child relationships uncovers evidence of parental love, care and, in the frequent cases of child death, grief throughout the period, concluding that there was as much continuity as change in the actual relations of children and adults across these five centuries. For undergraduate courses in History of the Family, European Social History, History of Children and Gender History.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2025. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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