The Disappearance of Childhood (Paperback)

Paperback. From the vogue for nubile models to the explosion in the juvenile crime rate, this modern classic of social history and media traces the precipitous decline of childhood in America todayand the corresponding threat to the notion of adulthood.Deftly marshaling a vast array of historical and demographic research, Neil Postman, author of Technopoly, suggests that childhood is a relatively recent invention, which came into being as the new medium of print imposed divisions between children and adults. But now these divisions are eroding under the barrage of television, which turns the adult secrets of sex and violence into popular entertainment and pitches both news and advertising at the intellectual level of ten-year-olds.Informative, alarming, and aphorisitc, The Disappearance of Childhood is a triumph of history and prophecy. Argues that the intrusion of television into every home introduces children too early to adult concepts and activities and subverts their ability to think abstractly, and the very concept of childhood is being destroyed. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…