Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the'male breadwinner marriage' is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. In The Way We Never Were , acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz provides a myth-shattering examination of two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues, and neither does any other era from our cultural past. This revised edition includes a new introduction and epilogue, looking at what has and has not changed since the original publication in 1992, and exploring how the clash between growing gender equality and growing economic inequality is reshaping family life, marriage, and male-female relationships in our modern era. Now more relevant than ever, The Way We Never Were continues to be a potent corrective to dangerous nostalgia for an American tradition that never really existed.
- ISBN10 0465098835
- ISBN13 9780465098835
- Publish Date 29 March 2016 (first published 31 October 1992)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Basic Books
- Edition 2nd edition
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 576
- Language English