Susan Cotts Watkins's Comments On Reading History Sideways
"The importance of this book is that it shows the enduring power of widespread and shared misconceptions of progress--both how progress is conceptualized and how it occurs. Between 1700 and 1900 scholars developed a coherent and evidently attractive model of social, political and economic change from primitive to modern, i.e. the West was pictured as the pinnacle of development. In the first part of this book, Thornton shows that the posited trajectory is wrong. In the second part , we learn that despite fatal flaws in the developmental model, it was exported far beyond Europe: if only people elsewhere would replicate the characteristics of western societies--Christianity, nuclear families, democracy--they too would become wealthy and civilized. For some, this promise was persuasive, but where it was not, the power of western institutions, money and armies overcame objections. Thornton wisely documents only one aspect of the developmental model, the assumed history of western family structure (for example, from extended to nuclear), a focus which permits him to provide abundant and convincing evidence. His book, however, suggests that others might follow his example and examine whether there are also misconceptions about democracy and women's rights as routes to success."
-
Susan Cotts Watkins, University of Pennsylvania
Publication details for Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.
