Psychology & Counseling, General, Social Sciences 

In this original and provocative book, J. H. van den Berg challenges a basic assumption of twentieth-century psychiatry: that human nature does not change. He asks: If earlier generations, living a different sort of life, were essentially different people, how was this so? And how has psychology, which attempts to describe people's activities, both reflected and influenced the changes that have occurred? Dr. van den Berg discusses how the relationships between parents and children have altered in the last four hundred years; what these alterations mean for education and for life patterns within Western society; why maturation has become so delayed and so difficult for our children; and some ways women have changed since the Victorian era. He goes on to discuss the social aspects of neurotic disturbance and modern man's distance from God. "Beautiful, original, profound, and very important... No book I have ever read has thrown new light into so many parts of my experience, or has so stimulated and advanced my thinking on so many questions." -John Holt "A bold, overarching, psychohistorical study of parental relations to children..." -Lawrence Stone, New York Review of Books "This is a remarkable book! Among the spate of books on the nature of man [it] stands out among the most original and most sensitive .... A work of art as well as a work of science." -Ashley Montagu Jan Hendrik van den Berg is a Dutch psychiatrist. His numerous books include Medical Power and Medical Ethics, also published by Norton. - from Amzon