The Disappearance of Childhood

With a new Introduction by the author. From the vogue for nubile models to the explosion in the juvenile crime rate, this modern classic of social history and prophecy traces the precipitous decline of childhood in America today, and the corresponding threat to the notion of adulthood. Postman suggests that childhood is a relatively recent invention, which came into being as the new media of print imposed divisions between children and adults. But now those divisions are eroding under the barrage of television, which turns the adult secrets of sex and violence into popular entertainment and pitches both news and advertising at the intellectual level of ten-year-olds.

Table of Contents

Part One: The Invention of Childhood
1. When There Were No Children
2. The Printing Press and the New Adult
3. The Incunabula of Childhood
4. Childhood's Journey

Part Two: The Disappearance of Childhood
5. The Beginning of the End
6. The Total Disclosure Medium
7. The Adult-Child
8. The Disappearing Child
9. Six Questions