TY  - BOOK
AU  - Thornton,Arland
TI  - Reading history sideways: the fallacy and enduring impact of the developmental paradigm on family life 
T2  - Population and development
SN  - 0226798607
AV  - HQ503 .T48 2005
U1  - 306.85094 22
PY  - 2005///
CY  - Chicago
PB  - University of Chicago Press
KW  - Families
KW  - Historiography
KW  - Europe, Western
KW  - Europe, Northern
KW  - History
KW  - Social change
N1  - Includes bibliographical references and index; 1; Introduction and overview --; 2; Models, data, and methods --; 3; Views of changes in family life from reading history sideways --; 4; The fertility decline in northwest Europe --; 5; Changes in family life in the northwest European historical record --; 6; The scholarly legacy --; 7; The legacy of data --; 8; Developmental idealism --; 9; Freedom, equality, and consent in northwest European family relationships --; 10; Fighting barbarism in the United States --; 11; Government pathways of influence outside northwest Europe --; 12; Social and economic pathways of influence outside northwest Europe --; 13; The power of developmental thinking --; Postscript : dealing with the language of the developmental paradigm
N2  - "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."--BOOK JACKET
UR  - http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/uchi051/2004017204.html
ER  -