NEWSLETTER

Society for the History of Children and Youth

News from the Field, II
Compiled by David Pomfret

This column provides a brief introduction to recent, mostly English-language, publications potentially of interest to scholars working on the History of Childhood and Youth.

Newly published work memoirs and autobiographies relevant to the History of Childhood and Youth include Philippe Aèri, Avoir dix ans en Algeria: Chroniques d’un enfant dans la guerre(Temps des Cerises, 2007) and Beatrice Ost, My Father’s House: A Childhood in Wartime Bavaria(Helen Marx, 2007).

New additions to scholarship in this field dealing with the United States include Leslie Paris’s, Children’s Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp(New York University Press, 2008). Lawrence J. Epstein’s At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side 1880-1920, recently published by Jossey-Bass (2007) contains a section on ‘Children and Families.’ Susan A. Miller has published Growing Girls: The Natural Origins of Girls’ Organizations in America(Rutgers University Press, 2007), and Howard P. Chudacoff has published Children at play: An American history(New York University Press, 2007) covering the period from the seventeenth century to the present. Also of interest is Crista Deluzio's study, Female Adolescence in American Scientific Thought, 1830-1930 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

Working at the interstices of the history of education, literature and culture, Elizabeth Gargano has published Reading Victorian Schoolrooms: Childhood and Education in Nineteenth-century Fiction(Routledge, 2008). Also potentially of interest to readers is William J. Reese and John L. Rury’s recently-published edited volume, Rethinking the History of American Education(Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Penny Brown has published A Critical History of French Children’s Literaturewith Routledge (2008), offering a useful overview to the subject from the seventeenth century to the present. Another publication from a scholar working on nineteenth century literature and culture which may be of interest to readers is, Linda M. Austin’s, Nostalgia in Transition, 1780-1917(University of Virginia Press, 2007), which contains interesting reflections on childhood in relation to nostalgia as a literary trope.

On Europe, Katrina Honeyman’s, Child Workers in England, 1780-1820: Parish Apprentices and the Making of the Early Industrial Labour Force has recently been published with Ashgate (2007). Marina Balina and Larissa Rudova have published an edited collection of essays entitled Russian Children’s Literature and Culture(Routledge, 2008) with a strong historical focus. Mark Antliff’s new book, Avant-garde fascism : the mobilization of myth, art, and culture in France, 1909-1939(Duke University Press, 2007) contains a chapter on “Machine Primitives:Philippe Lamour and the fascist cult of youth.” Marion E. P. de Ras had published Body, Femininity and Nationalism: Girls in the German Youth Movement 1900-1934(Routledge, 2008).

On Africa, Nicolas Argenti’s, The Intestines of the State: Youth, Violence, and Belated Histories in the Cameroon Grassfields has been published with University of Chicago Press (2007).

On South America, Ondina E. González and Bianca Premo have brought out an edited volume containing essays entitled, Raising an empire : children in early modern Iberia and colonial Latin America(University of New Mexico Press, 2007).

The postwar era is continuing to attract attention from historians of childhood and youth and an example of recent work is Anna Saunders,’ Honecker’s Children: Youth and Patriotism in East(ern) Germany, 1979-2002(Manchester University Press/Palgrave, 2007).

On the premodern period, Paul B. Newman has published Growing up in the Middle Ages(McFarland and Company Inc., 2007).