Description
Book SynopsisEuropean 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. This title demonstrates how this approach, though long since discredited, has permeated Western ideas about the family.
Trade Review"This is a much-needed book about powerful conceptual frameworks that have been profoundly influential for centuries.... Reading History Sideways should be compulsory reading for any scholar working on families, especially demographers and family historians." (Population Studies) "An exceptional work. Arland Thornton's intellectual breadth is remarkable, as is the creativity of his argument and the evidence he marshals for it. His ideas are strikingly original and extremely important, and his argument is careful and thoughtful." (Linda Waite, University of Chicago) "An intellectual feast." (Calvin Goldscheider, Brown University)"
