Synopses & Reviews
Review
In the original sense of the term, A History of Private Life is a series of essays: attempts at a new, non-narrative kind of history. Sumptuously illustrated with pictures, maps, and photographs, the book is a feast for the eye; it is fascinating, often compelling in its exquisite details...A kaleidoscopic effect is doubtless part of the authors' purpose: to question our assumption that we understand the history of Renaissance individualism and make us realize that it is as complicated as the variety of traces left by three centuries of private life. Maureen Quilligan
Review
This is a bold and seductive book...Richly illustrated, with contributions from foremost French historians, it is set fair to become the authoritative history of intimacy in the early modern West. New York Times Book Review
Review
Its broad chronological scope, its remarkable effective integration of essays by different historians, and above all its ability to represent the seemingly frivolous details of private life in a challengingly theoretical matrix make this an important and exciting work for historians of Early Modern Europe. Lyndal Roper - Times Higher Education Supplement
Synopsis
Readers interested in history, and in the development of the modern sensibility, will relish this large-scale yet intimately detailed examination of the blossoming of the ordinary and extraordinary people of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. This third in the popular five-volume series celebrates the emergence of individualism and the manifestations of a burgeoning self-consciousness over three centuries.
About the Author
Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France.Arthur Goldhammer received the French-American Translation Prize in 1990 for his translation of A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.
Table of Contents
Introduction
by Philippe Ariès 1. Figures of Modernity
by Yves Castan, Fran&ccdeil;ois Lebrun, Roger Chartier
Introduction
by Roger Chartier
Politics and Private Life
The Two Reformations: Communal Devotion and Personal Piety
The Practical Impact of Writing
2. Forms of Privatization
by Jacques Revel, Orest Ranum, Jean-Louis Flandrin, Jacques Gélis, Madelaine Foisil, Jean Marie Goulemot
Introduction
by Roger Chartier
The Uses of Civility
The Refuges of Intimacy
Distinction through Taste
The Child: From Anonymity to Individuality
The Literature of Intimacy
Literary Practices: Publicizing the Private
3. Community, State, and Family: Trajectories and Tensions
by Nicole Castan, Maurice Aymard, Alain Collomp, Daniel Fabre, Arlette Farge
Introduction
by Roger Chartier
The Public and the Private
Friends and Neighbors
Families: Habitations and Cohabitations
Families: Privacy versus Custom
The Honor and Secrecy of Families
Epilogue
by Roger Chartier
Notes
Bibliography
Credits
Index