World of Their Own Making Paperback by John R. Gillis

Product Details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press (1997-10-21)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 336 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780674961883
• Item Weight: 368.55 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

Our whole society may be obsessed with “family values,” but as John Gillis points out in this entertaining and eye-opening book, most of our images of “home sweet home” are of very recent vintage. A World of Their Own Making questions our idealized notion of “The Family,” a mind-set in which myth and symbol still hold sway. As the families we live with become more fragile, the symbolic families we live by become more powerful. Yet it is only by accepting the notion that our ritual, myths, and images must be open to perpetual revision that we can satisfy our human needs and changing circumstances.

About the Author

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