Domestic Tyranny: The Making of American Social Policy Against Family Violence from Colonial Times to the Present [Hardcover]

Elizabeth H. Pleck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 1987

Family violence, once considered a private trouble, has become a matter of intense public concern. Many people think the problems of child abuse and wife-beating were "discovered" in the last two decades. This book, the first history of family violence in the United States, proves otherwise. Based on enormous research into court records, newspaper accounts, and autobiographies, the book creates a broad portrait of America's attitudes toward family violence over time, considering not only how the problem has been defined but also the institutional and legal remedies reformers have devised to respond to it. The author investigates the reasons for the ebb and flow of societal attention to the problem from the Puritans of New England, who devised a criminal code to punish wife-beating, to Victorian efforts to prevent cruelty to children, to the battered woman's movement of our time. Pleck contends that an unusual social and political atmosphere, rather than a change in the nature or incidence of family violence, stimulated concern. Furthermore, Pleck shows that the goal of polieis against family violence has been, for much of American history, to shore up the family and reconcile victim and victimizer within the home. Placing the safety of victims ahead of the goal of preserving the family leads inevitably to increased efforts to remove victims from their homes, Pleck maintains. Yet such efforts are controversial, and throughout history the most successful reformers have carefully sidestepped this issue, the book shows.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The devastating consequences of the current 'epidemic' of family violence makes Pleck's analysis all the more timely. Her thoroughly researched and carefully argued study should be required reading for all those concerned with the problem today." --Nancy Tomes, Science "Domestic Tyranny is in every sense a pioneering work that not only raises provocative questions about the nature and scope of family violence but also probes the inherent difficulties in shaping remedies." --Norma Basch, Journal of American History --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

About the Author:
Elizabeth Pleck is a Research Associate at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College. She is the author of Black Migration and Poverty and co-author of A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 14, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195041119
• ISBN-13: 978-0195041118
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,920,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Pleck lives in Champaign, Illinois where is a Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She first began research on African American history in New England as an undergraduate active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In "Love of Freedom," she is most proud of uncovering how many legal suits for freedom were brought by black women in New England.