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The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap Audiobook
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The definitive edition of the classic, myth-shattering history of the American family
Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the "male breadwinner marriage" is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. In The Way We Never Were, acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz examines two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues, and neither does any other era from our cultural past. This revised edition includes a new introduction and epilogue, exploring how the clash between growing gender equality and rising economic inequality is reshaping family life, marriage, and male-female relationships in our modern era. More relevant than ever, The Way We Never Were is a potent corrective to dangerous nostalgia for an American tradition that never really existed.
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“Historically rich and loaded with anecdotal evidence, The Way We Never Were effectively demolishes the normal, traditional nuclear family as neither normal nor traditional and not even nuclear.”
— Nation
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“Often brilliant and invariably provocative.”
— New York Times Book Review -
"[Coontz] approaches the subject of what we now insist up on calling ‘family values’ with what is, in the current atmosphere, a refreshing lack of partisan cant.”
— Washington Post Book World -
“Coontz’s strength is in the way she shows that families of every era have been blamed for conditions beyond their control.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
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About Stephanie Coontz
Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She also serves as director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families. Her work has been featured in newspapers such as the New York Times, as well as scholarly journals such as Journal of Marriage and Family, and she is frequently interviewed on national television and radio.
About Suzanne Toren
Suzanne Toren, award-winning narrator, has over thirty years of experience in narration. She was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She has won the American Foundation for the Blind’s Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year, AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture, and she is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. She performs on and off Broadway and in regional theaters and has appeared on Law & Order and in various soap operas.