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Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
This is the final volume of an already standard work on private life in Western civilization from Greco-Roman times to the present. The entire work was planned by Phillipe Ariès and Georges Duby in the tradition of the Annales group; this volume was first published in France as Histoire de la vie privee: de la Première Guerre mondiale à nos jours (1987). Editors Prost and Vincent have added sections on Italian, German, and American families to this English edition, thereby making it more comprehensive. Like the previous four volumes (v.l: CH, Jun'87; v.3: CH, Oct'89), this one has a theme--personal identity. The editors and authors pursue this theme in the same contexts used in the earlier volumes: in the workplace and the city, where private property and private activities have been subjects of controversy and objects of state control; in the home and family, where, increasingly, even sexual matters are not private; and in middle groups between state and individual--such as church. or mosque, or party--where more and more personal dramas are acted out in a world of cultural diversity. As Duby's foreword in the first volume indicated, A History of Private Life aims at an in-depth analysis of the evolution of personality as concept and reality in the Western world. Now complete in French and in English translation, the work is a tribute to the Annales approach of studying structural changes over long periods and to the late great historian Ariès, on whose schema Duby and the other editors drew.
--Reviewed by T. J. Knight in Choice, 29 (April 1992), p. 1282.
--Reviewed by T. J. Knight in Choice, 29 (April 1992), p. 1282.
- GenresHistoryAnthologies
Hardcover
Published October 1, 1991
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About the author
Philippe Ariès
79 books111 followersPhilippe Ariès (21 July 1914 – 8 February 1984) was a French medievalist and historian of the family and childhood, in the style of Georges Duby. He wrote many books on the common daily life. His most prominent works regarded the change in the western attitudes towards death.
Ariès regarded himself as an "anarchist of the right". He was initially close to the Action française but later distanced himself from it, as he viewed it as too authoritarian, hence his self-description as an "anarchist". Ariès also contributed to La Nation française, a royalist review. However, he also co-operated with many left-wing French historians, especially with Michel Foucault, who wrote his obituary.
During his life, his work was often better known in the English-speaking world than it was in France itself. He is known above all for his book L’Enfant et la Vie Familiale sous l’Ancien Régime (1960), which was translated into English as Centuries of Childhood (1962). This book is pre-eminent in the history of childhood, as it was essentially the first book on the subject (although some antiquarian texts were earlier). Even today, Ariès remains the standard reference to the topic. Ariès is most famous for his statement that "in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist". Its central thesis is that attitudes towards children were progressive and evolved over time with economic change and social advancement, until childhood, as a concept and an accepted part of family life, from the 17th century. It was thought that children were too weak to be counted and that they could disappear at any time. However, children were considered as adults as soon as they could live alone.
The book has had mixed fortunes. His contribution was profoundly significant both in that it recognised childhood as a social construction rather than as a biological given and in that it founded the history of childhood as a serious field of study. At the same time, his account of childhood has by now been widely criticised.
Ariès is likewise remembered for his invention of another field of study: the history of attitudes to death and dying. Ariès saw death, like childhood, as a social construction. His seminal work in this ambit is L'Homme devant la mort (1977), his last major book, published in the same year when his status as a historian was finally recognised by his induction into the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), as a directeur d'études.
Ariès regarded himself as an "anarchist of the right". He was initially close to the Action française but later distanced himself from it, as he viewed it as too authoritarian, hence his self-description as an "anarchist". Ariès also contributed to La Nation française, a royalist review. However, he also co-operated with many left-wing French historians, especially with Michel Foucault, who wrote his obituary.
During his life, his work was often better known in the English-speaking world than it was in France itself. He is known above all for his book L’Enfant et la Vie Familiale sous l’Ancien Régime (1960), which was translated into English as Centuries of Childhood (1962). This book is pre-eminent in the history of childhood, as it was essentially the first book on the subject (although some antiquarian texts were earlier). Even today, Ariès remains the standard reference to the topic. Ariès is most famous for his statement that "in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist". Its central thesis is that attitudes towards children were progressive and evolved over time with economic change and social advancement, until childhood, as a concept and an accepted part of family life, from the 17th century. It was thought that children were too weak to be counted and that they could disappear at any time. However, children were considered as adults as soon as they could live alone.
The book has had mixed fortunes. His contribution was profoundly significant both in that it recognised childhood as a social construction rather than as a biological given and in that it founded the history of childhood as a serious field of study. At the same time, his account of childhood has by now been widely criticised.
Ariès is likewise remembered for his invention of another field of study: the history of attitudes to death and dying. Ariès saw death, like childhood, as a social construction. His seminal work in this ambit is L'Homme devant la mort (1977), his last major book, published in the same year when his status as a historian was finally recognised by his induction into the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), as a directeur d'études.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 30, 2011
So after the social/psychological individual was permitted to exist and protected in that existence, and organic social organization was left to the arena occupied by churches, a whole new set of questions have to be answered, and a whole new set of problems have to be addressed. Written history is the history of organic society in which the group assigns roles and identities to individuals. In our "new" inorganic organization we appear to be going where no man has gone before. There is no road map. I don't know what I think about this, except it appears we are flirting with entropy instead of creation. This seems to be a social choice born from the absence of solid cultural boundaries. Wow.
September 17, 2015
Didn't finish. Very superficial review of 20th century, even considering that (continuing with earlier volumes) it focuses on France.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews