Childhood in Modern Europe by Colin Heywood

Abstract

Reviewed by: Childhood in Modern Europe by Colin Heywood Birgitte Søland Childhood in Modern Europe. By Colin Heywood. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. x + 286 pp. Cloth $105, paper $29.99. An undisputed pioneer in the field, Colin Heywood has been producing exceptional scholarship on the history of modern European childhood since the 1980s. In this book he offers an outstanding survey of current developments both in the conception of childhood and the lives of children from the eighteenth century to the present. The book is divided into three sections. The first examines village life, still predominant across Europe throughout the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries, thus offering "the essential point of departure for everything that follows" (13). The second part shifts the focus to urban life during this same period, stressing both intellectual and material changes. The third and final part takes as its point of departure the late nineteenth century, considering childhood in increasingly affluent societies, while also addressing the traumas associated with two world wars. Featuring a comparative approach, the narrative incorporates evidence from across Europe, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, and from Ireland to Russia. (Impressively, the footnotes cite not only English-language scholarship, but also French, German, Italian, and Spanish research deriving from diverse disciplines ranging from history and anthropology to sociology, psychology, and economics.) The narrative smoothly weaves evidence of large-scale social and economic changes, philosophical developments and shifting legal and political frameworks with compelling stories about children's lives, generally drawn from memoirs and other autobiographical writing. In spite of the inevitable shortage of children's voices, the book is still a richly "peopled" account, brimming with children and youngsters, parents and kin, employers and teachers, politicians and childhood "experts." Heywood also gently incorporates information about historiographical developments and debates into his writing, inserting statements such as "during the late twentieth century, historians had to revise some [End Page 157] of the accepted ideas. . . ." and "the consensus among historians is now. . . ." (137, 163). Contrary to what might be expected, this only enhances the readability of the book, while reminding us that historical scholarship is a work in progress. Several themes run through the text. First, Heywood continually challenges Whiggish approaches to the history of childhood. While noting that children in the 1950s and 1960s—generally better fed, better clothed and better housed than their predecessors—"had never had it so good," he is careful to point out both the things they have lost (such as relative independence) in the course of the last few centuries, and the incomplete nature of historical "progress" (218). Even in the twentieth century, "the doleful influence of poverty lingered on" (225). Second, he consistently highlights the diversity of historical experiences among children, focusing especially on the differences associated with class, gender, religious belief, and geographical location. Third, he explores the continual tension between seeing children as adults-in-the-making and as unique individuals in their own right, and the social consequences of these divergent perceptions. Any survey text necessarily depends on existing scholarship, and shortcomings thus tend to reflect limitations in our general knowledge. Inadvertently, Heywood's work thus points to areas yet to be explored. The history of European children growing up in non-Christian families, for example, is still largely incomplete. The same can be said about the history of childhood and sexuality. The history of gender-nonconforming children also remains to be written. However, some applicable existing literature receives relatively short shrift in Heywood's account. Tending to highlight the experiences of children generally, gendered analyses of childhood are often downplayed, and on occasion boys' experiences stand in for children's experiences more broadly. The assertion, for example, that "generally . . . schooling was an unpleasant experience for working-class children" may be an accurate assessment with regards to most boys, but as feminist scholars have uncovered, girls often had fairly positive experiences, finding school time to be a welcome respite from endless chores and reading a means of escape from their limited world (259). Nonetheless, Childhood in Modern Europe is an exceptionally useful and insightful book. Highly accessible and engagingly written, it is not only a model textbook for university...