ABSTRACT
Philippe Aries was a French historian of European history in the early modern period—the late 1500s to the late 1800s. His book Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life was first published in French in 1960. Centuries of Childhood claims that childhood as we know it did not exist in the Middle Ages, and that the modern idea of childhood was invented in the seventeenth century when it came to be understood as a distinct phase of development. The notion of childhood included the need for education, family life, and preparation for adulthood. Centuries of Childhood also provides a model for considering complex social developments across different fields of study, from anthropology to biology and beyond. It also showed that Aries was motivated by the notion that history could help us understand the present. He wanted to show how family life had developed, thanks to new ideas that started to emerge in the seventeenth century.
