Title: Reading history sideways : the fallacy and enduring impact of the developmental paradigm on family life /
Authors: Thornton, Arland
Publisher: University of Chicago Press,
Year: 2005
Subjects: Families Europe History.; Families Europe Historiography.; Families Historiography.; Families Europe, Northern Historiography.; Families History.; Families Europe, Northern History.; Social change; Families Europe, Western Historiography.; Families Europe, Western History.
Abstract: "European and American scholars from the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries thought that all societies passed through the same developmental stages, from primitive to advanced. Implicit in this developmental paradigm - one that has affected generations of thought on societal development - was the assumption that one could "read history sideways." That is, one could see what the earlier stages of a modern Western society looked like by examining contemporaneous so-called primitive societies in other parts of the world." "In Reading History Sideways, family scholar Arland Thornton demonstrates how this approach, though long since discredited, has permeated Western ideas and values about the family. Further, its domination of social science for centuries caused the misinterpretation of Western trends in family structure, marriage, fertility, and parent-child relations. Revisiting the "developmental fallacy," Thornton here traces its central role in changes in the Western world, from marriage to gender roles to adolescent sexuality. Through public policies, aid programs, and colonialism, it continues to reshape families in non-Western societies as well."--Jacket.
Contents: Models, data, and methods -- Views of changes in family life from reading history sideways -- The fertility decline in northwest Europe -- Changes in family life in the northwest European historical record -- The scholarly legacy -- The legacy of data -- Developmental idealism -- Freedom, equality, and consent in northwest European family relationships -- Fighting barbarism in the United States -- Governmental pathways of influence outside northwest Europe -- Social and economic pathways of influence outside northwest Europe -- The power of developmental thinking -- Postscript : dealing with the language of the developmental paradigm.