Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence - Hardcover

Gordon, Linda Perlman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670819093 ISBN 13: 9780670819096

Publisher: Viking, 1988

Synopsis

A brilliant history of family violence that reveals the reasons for society'sfailure to control it. "Feminist scholarship at its best"--The New York TimesBook Review. 16 pages of photos.

About this title

About the Author

Linda Gordon is the Florence Kelley Professor of History at New York University. She is the author of numerous books including Dorothea Lange and Impounded, and won the Bancroft Prize for The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. She lives in New York.

From Publishers Weekly

In reviewing the history of family violence since the 1870s, Gordon, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin and author of Woman's Body, Woman's Right, studies clients of three Boston child-welfare agencies through the rich detail of case records. Historically, domestic violence has stemmed not only from sexual inequality, the author finds, but also from individual aspirations and a familial power struggle that reflects changing social values, economic pressures and relations between classes, sexes and generations. Gordon notes that caseworkers handle many kinds of child abuse and neglect by both men and women as well as incest and wife beating. Their response is influenced by varying psychological and social interpretations and by dominant political moods. Several reform movements, notably feminism, have increased public awareness of family violence, especially as concerns battered wives. The book concludes, however, that all forms of abuse are still common, particularly the victimizing of children who cannot seek aid on their own.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0670819093
• ISBN 13: 9780670819096
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 383