The Disappearance of Childhood,   ISBN:9780679751663

Customer Rating: 

Take time out to read this - hard going in places but really worth it

Customer Rating: 

I was introduced to the writings of Neil Postman very recently and for that I am glad. He combines knowledge, great writing skills and the ability to prophesize about the future, and the result is always a powerful book that is usually way ahead of its time. This book is no exception.
This is a very disturbing book, and what exasperates things is that the author seems to be right. It is easier to agree with this book today that it was when it was first published because many things that the author mentions have actually became true. The author describes how the idea of childhood first came about and shows that it was a necessary step in the evolution of man as a social animal. The author then goes on to tell the reader how this necessary idea is now disappearing. Children and adults dress the same way, they speak the same way and most importantly they have access to the same information. Ever parent should read this book to be aware of what too much information might do to children. I know that a lot of people might not agree with the main premises of the book, but I am sure that most parents will relate to it.

Customer Rating: 

This book pairs well with Mr. Postman's superb book, "Are We Amusing Ourselves to Death?" Both together give the reader a deep understanding of the difference between our former print culture and our present electronic culture. Although they were written before the internet catapulted into such prominence, it is amazing how the author conveys how deeply different are cultures based in print and based in electronics. The major changes we see and will see in children produced by an electronic culture are well foreshadowed by this book.

Customer Rating: 

Beggining with Classical Greece, Postman catlogues the journey and development of childhood. I assumed he would have begun in the Industrial Revolution, which is where msot others might likely have started. However, Postman was never like most others.

An enjoyable, though troubling book to read, my favourite bits come earlier in the book where we find that childhood needs shame in order to be defiend. That shame is of adult things, and therefore, childhood is codefied by shame because the seperation then occurs, with adults needing to protect children. Is this shame then hidden in literature?

I'd go on, but you must simply raed through it yourself. I found it fascinating... and, as I've said before, troubling. This was written in the mid eighties, but this fact does not make it irrelevent. The apst twenty-some years may only provide more confirmation of Neil Postman's thesis.

A great book.

Customer Rating: 

This book predates the popularity of the internet, and is immediately outdated as a result, but closely examines how recent cultural trends (e.g. television) have vastly changed the concept of childhood as known since the time of the printing press. Postman argues forcefully that children are becoming young adults from when they can talk a bit - just because they are able to copy what they watch endlessly on TV.

Neil Postman died in 2003 so will not be writing about what the Internet will be doing to childhood. I wonder who is going to take the baton.