While children are a relatively unchanging fact of life, Childhood is a constantly shifting concept.
From the rules of Confucian childrearing in twelfth-century China to the struggles of children living as slaves in the Americas or as cotton mill workers in Industrial Age Britain, Marten takes his inspiration from the idea that the lives of children reveal important and sometimes uncomfortable truths about civilization..
In addressing this diversity, The History of Childhood: A Very Short Introduction takes a global, expansive view of the features of Childhood that have shaped Childhood throughout History and continue to shape it now.
Experiences of Childhood have been shaped in classrooms and on factory floors, in family homes and orphanages, and on battlefields and in front of television sets.
Indeed, ancient Roman children lived Very differently than those born of today\'s Generation Z.
As author James Marten explores in this Very Short Introduction, so too have the realities of childhood, each life shaped by factors such as education, expectation, and conflict (or lack thereof).
Through the millennia, the age at which a child becomes a youth and a youth becomes an adult has varied by gender, class, religion, ethnicity, place, and economic need.
While children are a relatively unchanging fact of life, Childhood is a constantly shifting concept
