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First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series,
this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in
the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman
empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens
and slaves-from concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and
the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception,
techniques of childbirth, homosexuality, religion, the meaning of
virtue, and the separation of private and public spaces. The
emergence of Christianity in the West and the triumph of Christian
morality with its emphasis on abstinence, celibacy, and austerity
is startlingly contrasted with the profane and undisciplined
private life of the Byzantine Empire. Using illuminating motifs,
the authors weave a rich, colorful fabric ornamented with the
results of new research and the broad interpretations that only
masters of the subject can provide.
The nineteenth century was the golden age of private life, a time
when the tentative self-consciousness of the Renaissance and
earlier eras took recognizable form, and the supreme individual,
with a political, scientific, and above all existential value,
emerged. The present book, fourth in the popular series, chronicles
this development from the tumult of the French Revolution to the
outbreak of World War I-a century and a quarter of rapid,
ungovernable change culminating in a conflict that, at a stroke,
altered life in the Western world. Guided by six eminent
historians, we move from the Enlightenment of the eighteenth
century, which conceived of man as a noble creature of reason, into
nineteenth-century Romanticism with its affirmation of
distinctively individual creatures in all their mystery and
impulsiveness, exalting intuition as a mode of knowledge. More and
more, men and women wanted to sleep alone, to be left alone to read
and write, to dress as they pleased, to eat or drink anything they
liked, to consort with and love whomever they fancied. Growing
democracies advanced those wishes to the status of rights,
expanding markets stimulated them, and migration encouraged them.
That new frontier, the city, simultaneously weakened family and
community constraints, spurred personal ambitions, and attenuated
traditional beliefs. The authors dramatize the nineteenth century's
organized effort to stabilize the boundary between public and
private by mooring it to the family, with the father as sovereign.
Such chapters as "The Sweet Delights of Home," "The Family
Triumphant," and "Private Spaces" describe the new domestic ideal
of the private dwelling as a refuge from perils and temptations in
the public arena, the father as benevolent despot, the wife as
contented practitioner of domestic arts, the children as small
versions of adults, equipping themselves to follow in their
parents' righteous footsteps. Particularly in England, the middle
class was central to the formation of this homely standard, which
spread to the working classes through evangelical preaching,
utilitarian writings, and economic changes and improvements that
resulted in a separation of home and workplace. At the same time,
the gentry was transforming castles into country houses, knights
into foxhunters, and landowners into gentleman farmers. The
domesticating process also expressed itself in hygienic practices
(soap, waterclosets, bathtubs), fashions in clothing, and vogues in
sports, courtship, and lovemaking. From the time of the French
Revolution, when private or special interests were looked upon as
shadowy influences likely to foster conspiracy and treason, through
the rapid transformations of the nineteenth century, the authors
reveal the more radical forms of modernity that arrived with the
twentieth century, with its explosions of trade and technology.
Besides the external development of goods and conveniences, the
expanses of the psyche were also being reorganized, bringing a new
openness about sexuality liberated from procreation and marriage.
Feminism, a relatively sporadic movement in the nineteenth century,
became a more persistent force, while young people and the
avant-garde continued to break the rules and push for change as an
end in itself. As always, law lagged behind reality: in practice,
more and more people rebelled against communal and family
discipline. The declaration of war in 1917 put a hold on some of
the flowering of individuality, but the unstoppable trend toward
personality nurtured by private life was only temporarily curbed.
This fifth and final volume in an award-winning series charts the
remarkable inner history of our times from the tumult of World War
I to the present day, when personal identity was released from its
moorings in gender, family, social class, religion, politics, and
nationality. Nine brilliant and bold historians present a dynamic
picture of cultures in transition and in the process scrutinize a
myriad of subjects-the sacrament of confession, volunteer hotlines,
Nazi policies toward the family, the baby boom, evolving sexuality,
the history of contraception, and ever-changing dress codes. They
draw upon many unexpected sources, including divorce hearing
transcripts, personal ads, and little-known demographic and
consumer data. Perhaps the most notable pattern to emerge is a
polarizing of public and private realms. Productive labor shifts
from the home to an impersonal public setting. Salaried or
corporate employment replaces many independent, entrepreneurial
jobs, and workers of all kinds aggressively pursue their leisure
time-coffee and lunch breaks, weekends, vacations. Zoning laws
segregate industrial and commercial areas from residential
neighborhoods, which are no longer a supportive "theater" of benign
surveillance, gossip, and mutual concern, but an assemblage of
aloof and anonymous individuals or families. Scattered with
personal possessions and appliances, homes grow large by
yesterday's standards and are marked by elaborate spatial
subdivisions; privacy is now possible even among one's own family.
Men and women are obsessed with health, fitness, diet, and
appearance as the body becomes the focal point of personal
identity. Mirrors, once a rarity, are ubiquitous. In the search for
sexual and individualistic fulfillment, romantic love becomes the
foundation of marriage. Couples marry at an older age; families are
smaller. The divorce rate rises, and with it the number of
single-parent households. Women, entering the workforce in
unprecedented numbers, frequently function as both breadwinner and
homemaker. The authors interrelate these dramatic patterns with the
changing roles of state and religion in family matters, the
socialization of education and elder care, the growth of feminism,
the impact of media on private life, and the nature of secrecy.
Comprehensive and astute, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
chronicles a period when the differentiation of life into public
and private realms, once a luxury of the wealthy, gradually spread
throughout the population. For better or worse, people can now be
alone. This fifth volume, differing significantly from the French
edition, portrays Italian, German, and American family life in the
twentieth century. The authors of these additional chapters-Chiara
Saraceno, Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann, and Elaine Tyler May-enlarge
and enhance the already broad European and Atlantic canvas that
depicts the modern identity.
All the mystery, earthiness and romance of the Middle Ages are
captured in this panorama of everyday life. The evolving concepts
of intimacy are explored--from the semi-obscure eleventh century
through the first stirrings of the Renaissance world in the
fifteenth century. Color and black-and-white illustrations.
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