This is a book that I have been working on for many years. Published late in 2011 by Palgrave Macmillan, The American Family is both an historical survey and an extended essay whose thesis is in its subtitle.
"The book is both timely and well-written and reflects the author's wide reading in the history, sociology, and anthropology of family life. This is an impressive achievement." Anya Jabour, The University of Montana
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". . . this book manages the impressive feat of providing a coherent overview of the social roots of changing American kinship pattens while at the same time serving as a provocative meditation on the roots of American individualism and on the implications of that individualism for our collective well-being." Jennifer S. Hirsch, Columbia University
"More than a textbook, it is a well-researched, tightly argued, and clearly and lively written interpretive history. His discussion of the diversity of North American, African, and European families of obligation before colonization is as rich as his analysis of the impact of their interaction after." Gary S. Cross, Penn State University
"The book is both timely and well-written and reflects the author's wide reading in the history, sociology, and anthropology of family life. This is an impressive achievement." Anya Jabour, The University of Montana
Purchase
". . . this book manages the impressive feat of providing a coherent overview of the social roots of changing American kinship pattens while at the same time serving as a provocative meditation on the roots of American individualism and on the implications of that individualism for our collective well-being." Jennifer S. Hirsch, Columbia University
"More than a textbook, it is a well-researched, tightly argued, and clearly and lively written interpretive history. His discussion of the diversity of North American, African, and European families of obligation before colonization is as rich as his analysis of the impact of their interaction after." Gary S. Cross, Penn State University