The Global History of Childhood Reader provides an essential collection of chapters and articles on the global history of childhood. The Reader is structured thematically so as to provide both a representative sampling of the historiography as well as an overview of the key issues of the field, such as childhood as a social construct, commonalities and differences globally, and why the twentieth century was not the "century of the child" for most of the world's children.

Acknowledgements. Prologue Heidi Morrison. PART 1. Introduction. 1. The Discovery of Childhood" Philippe Ariès 2. Re-visioning Women and Social Change: Where are the Children? Barrie Thorne 3. Bastardy in South Germany: A Comment. Edward Shorter 4. Historical Perspectives on Illegitimacy and Illegitimates in Latin America. Nara Milanich 5. TheSun Match Boy and Plant Metaphors: A Swedish Image of a 20th-Century Childhood. Karin Aronsson and Bengt Sandin 6. Childhood Remembered: Parents and Children in China, 800 to 1700 Pei-Yu Wu 7. Infants, Children and Death in Medieval Muslim Society Avner Giladi 8. Introduction. Martha Saxton 9. Integrative Summary Irving Sigel PART 2. Introduction. 1. Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran Afsaneh Najmabadi 2. Children in Chains: Juvenile Convicts Jan Kociumbas 3. African American Childhood Joseph Illick 4. Children and Childhood in World Religions Don Browning and Marcia Bunge 5. A History of Childhood and Disability Elizabeth Safford and Philip Safford 6. Invisible Hands: Child Labor and the State in Colonial Zimbabwe. Beverly Grier 7., Emphasizing the Islamic: Modifying the Curriculum of Late Ottoman State Schools Benjamin Fortna 8. Globalisation and Childhoods Peter Stearns PART 3. Introduction.1. A Most Remarkable Phenomenon: Growing Up Métis - Fur Traders' Children in the Pacific Northwest Juliet Pollard 2. Growing Up Poor: Home, Street, and School in London 1870-1914 Anna Davin 3. Thank you for the Wonderful Book: Soviet Child Readers and the Management of Children's Reading Catriona Kelly 4. Childhood and Child Labor in the British Industrial Revolution Jane Humphries PART 4. Introduction. 1. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 2. Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500 Hugh Cunningham 3. Children and the Politics of Culture in "Late Capitalism" Sharon Stephens 4. Lessons from the history of education for a 'century of the child at risk Ingrid Lohmann and Christine Mayer 5. Passages to Modernity: Motherhood, Childhood and Social Reform in Early Twentieth Century Japan Kathleen Uno 6. From Full-Time to Part-Time: Working Children in Norway from the nineteenth to the twentieth century Ellen Schrumpf 7. Statutory Rape Prosecutions in California Mary E Odem 8. The Disappearing Child Neil Postman