By Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler.
Harper Colophon, 1983. 347 pp. $8.95
By Edwin Diamond. MIT, 1983. 273 pp
$6.95
By Ivor No&l Hume. Delta, 1983. 343 pp.
$9·95
Philippe Aries
In the freshness of discovery, the historian invariably (and fortunately) has difficulty detaching himself from the jumble of impressions that drew him into his adventurous quest in the first place. The passage of time diminishes the excitement but brings in return a compensation: a better view of the forest. Today, in the wake of contemporary debates about children, the family, youth-and about my own book, Centuries of Childhood (1962)-I see more clearly the broad ideas underlying...
In the freshness of discovery, the historian invariably (and fortunately) has difficulty detaching himself from the jumble of impressions that drew him into his adventurous quest in the first place. The passage of time diminishes the excitement but brings in return a compensation: a better view of the forest. Today, in the wake of contemporary debates about children, the family, youth-and about my own book, Centuries of Childhood (1962)-I see more clearly the broad ideas underlying my work.
I...
has var- ied with our ideas about it.
Today, we view children as having such unique status that we have largely cordoned them off from the rest of life. We now separate children from the world of work, strictly divide work and play, and exclude (or "shelter") children from many aspects of everyday existence. The young have their own institutions: day care centers, nursery schools, elementary schools. They are studied by childhood specialists; no group, indeed, has been so overanalyzed....
?
One reason, of course, is that children provide jobs. Jobs for more than 1.3 million elementary school teachers, for 13 million stay-at-home mothers, for the makers of the 1.3 million infant and toddler car seats sold in the United States in 1980; jobs, too, for many of the 2,768 psychologists who received their Ph.D.s that same year. The very existence of children, moreover, im- plies that the economy is in for a long run.
Children keep democracy fit. Without kids there would be no PTA. Local...
a sorrow which remains above all others."
Such ambivalence was charac-
teristic of the ancients, observes
Barbara Kaye Greenleaf in her popu-
lar survey, Children Through the
Ages (McGraw-Hill, 1978). The Egyp-
tians worshipped two gods who pro-
tected children: Maskonit, who
appeared at the moment of birth,
and Rainit, who insured that the in-
fant was properly nursed.
Yet, infanticide was common in such cultures. The Phoenicians, Moabites, and Ammonites engaged in child sacrifice....
y a few years ago, the United States seemed destined to enjoy endless good times. The 1950s were marred by two brief reces- sions, but unemployment averaged only 4.5 percent, inflation two percent. By 1965, the pace of annual economic growth had nearly doubled, climbing to 6.5 percent, and unemployment and inflation remained near their old levels. It seemed that Wash- ington's economic sages had hit upon a magic formula to ensure growing prosperity for all. But within a decade, chronic stagfla-...
City-state. Like Britain and Japan, the Vatican has a geography, a population, a language, and a national anthem ("Inno Pon- tifico," Gounod). In some ways, its domestic problems are those of many a larger nation: Worldwide stagflation, for exam- ple, has drained the Vatican's exchequer. Domestic political and administrative reforms, long overdue, have not always worked out as planned. What set the Vatican apart, of course, are its tiny size and its religious mission. Here, theologian...