World of Their Own Making

John R. Gillis is Professor of History at Rutgers University and author of For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present.

• Prologue Acknowledgments Introduction Different Times, Different Places: Meanings of Family and Home Before the Modern Age Myths of Family Past At Home with Families of Strangers Life and Death in a Small Parenthesis Enchanting Families: The Victorian Origins of Modern Family Cultures A World of Their Own Making Making Time(s) for Family No Place Like Home Mythic Figures in the Suburban Landscape The Perfect Couple Mothers Giving Birth to Motherhood Bringing Up Fathers: Strangers in Our Midst Haunting the Dead New Times and New Places: Myths and Rituals for a Global Era Conclusion: Remaking Our Worlds Notes Index

Synthesizes, in thoroughly readable prose, a tremendous amount of recent historical literature on Western family life from the Middle Ages to the present. This is no mean feat, and the fact that it undermines many loudly proclaimed political pieties is a delicious bonus.