Growing Up: The History of Childhood in Global Context

In these lectures, Peter N. Stearns combines two flourishing historical fields-the history of childhood and world history-to address the question of how much of childhood is natural and how much is historically determined. The first lecture gauges the impact of impact of the development of agriculture, civilization, and religion upon the pre-modern experience of childhood. The second lecture turns to how modern perspectives on childhood contrasted with traditional ones, and how and why a modern perspective developed and spread. These lectures clearly outline the basic changes in childhood that are surprisingly recent and surprisingly sweeping.