Romantic Longings: Love in America, 1830-1980 - Softcover

Seidman, Steven

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415908280 ISBN 13: 9780415908283

Publisher: Routledge, 1993

Synopsis

In Romantic Longings Steven Seidman offers an original perspective on the origins and current meaning of the American intimate culture. Drawing on a wide range of sources--sex surveys, advice literature, autobiographies, novels--he charts a change from a Victorian spiritual ideal to efforts by current reformers to sexualize love. Stressing that contemporary notions of intimacy are grounded in twentieth-century historical developments, he observes the birth of a culture of eroticism in the post-World War II years--a culture where sexuality is conceived as both a sphere of love and intimacy and a domain of pleasure and self-expression.

About this title

About the Author:

Steven Seidman is Associate Professor of Sociology at SUNY, Albany. He is the author of Embattled Eros (Routledge, 1992).

Review:

". . . a challenging and worthwhile read. Its tracing of what love and sex has meant to Americans through the ages is clear and captivating." -- Community - May 1991

". . . an important and provocative book, which helps place current debates about sex and love in a historical perspective." -- Dennis Altman, Author of AIDS in the Mind of America

"Seidman has made an important contribution to contemporary debates about the meaning and role of sex in the America of the 1990s." -- Journal of Social History

"Seidman offers a useful and engaging study detailing the meaning of love and sex within the white middle class." -- John D'Emilio, American Historical Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0415908280
• ISBN 13: 9780415908283
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256