Some remarkable new works on the history of childhood and youth have emerged during the first half of 2004.

An example is the Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood: In History and Society (New York/London: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), of which Paula Fass is editor. Another general work of note is The American Child: A Cultural Studies Reader (New Brunswick, N.J. ; London : Rutgers University Press, 2003) edited by Caroline F. Levander and Carol J. Singley.

Recent works which deal with the cultural history of childhood include: Daniel T. Cook, The Commodification of Childhood : The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer (Durham, N.C. ; London : Duke University Press, 2004) and Gary S. Cross, The Cute and the Cool : Wondrous Innocence and Modern American Children's Culture (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Staying with the theme of culture, dealing with young people and Italian cinema is Enrica Capussotti’s, Gioventù perduta : gli anni Cinquanta dei giovani e del cinema in Italia (Firenze: Giunti, 2004).

The recent spate of publications on girls and girlhood has continued with Mary Collins’ work, The Essential Daughter: Changing Expectations for Girls at Home, 1797 to Present (Westport, CT : Praeger, 2003); Jane Greer ed. Girls and Literacy in America : Historical Perspectives to the Present (Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 2003); and Kelly Schrum, Some Wore Bobby Sox; The Emergence of Teenage Girls’ Culture, 1920-1945 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Boyhood has not been neglected, however, as Kenneth B. Kidd’s new book, Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2004) demonstrates.

Autobiographical writing is a valuable resource to the historian of childhood and youth; recent autobiographies include Guido Knopp, Hitler’s Children (Simon & Schuster, 2002), Ella E. Schneider Hilton (assisted by Angela K. Hilton), Displaced Person: A Girl's Life in Russia, Germany, and America (Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, c2004) and Helga Schneider, Let Me Go (London: Heinemann, 2004).

The study of childhood, adolescence and youth has been closely and usefully interwoven with histories of health and medicine. Coincidentally enough, both editors of this column can report on the publication of recent publications in this field. Children’s health has been explored in Children and Youth in Sickness and in Health: A Historical Handbook and Guide (Westport, Conn./London: Greenwood Press, 2004), edited by Janet Golden, Richard A. Meckel, and Heather Munro Prescott. Also dealing, in part, with issues of health, as well as politics, work and modern urban festivals, Young People and the European City: Age Relations in Nottingham and Saint-Etienne 1890-1940 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), by David M. Pomfret, provides a social and cultural history of the young people in a comparative urban context. Another recent example of the insights such a methodology can yield is provided by Helen King’s intriguing work, Disease of Virgins: Green Sickness, Chlorosis, and the Problems of Puberty, (Routledge: London, 2004).

Other work on the historical context of modern Britain and France has been forthcoming. Two salient examples are the Britannia's Children : Emigration from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland since 1600 (London/New York: Hambledon and London, 2004) by Eric Richards, and Jean-Claude Farcy, La Jeunesse Rurale dans la France du XIXe Siècle (Paris : Christian, 2004).

Scholars working on pre-modern youth and childhood have also been busy. On the early-modern period, Children of the Promise: The Confraternity of the Purification and the Socialization of Youths in Florence, 1427-1785 (Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004) by Lorenzo Polizzotto has just been published, and (now a couple of years old but also worthy of mention here) Julia Douthwaite’s, The Wild Girl, Natural Man, and the Monster: Dangerous Experiments in the Age of Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). On the medieval period P.J.P. Goldberg and Felicity Riddy’s edited volume, Youth in the Middle Ages (Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell & Brewer, 2004) promises to become a very useful text for those teaching courses in the History of Youth over the longue durée. Also worthy of mention is Carol Neel ed. Medieval Families: Perspectives on Marriage, Household, and Children (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). Outside Europe, new publications dealing with pre-modern childhood and youth have been slow to emerge. However, as mentioned in previous columns, studies of the Chinese context (in English) is beginning to emerge. Further evidence of recent attempts by scholars to engage with this relatively-underdeveloped area is provided by Anne B. Kinney’s, Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.

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