Family Sociology

This groundbreaking study of agriculture's role in the war defies long-held notions that Northern industrialization and urbanization led to clashes between North and South. Huston argues that the ideological chasm between plantation owners in the South and family farmers in the North led to the political eruption of 1854-1856 and the birth of a sectionalized party system.

Night delivers a litter of eight puppies in a poor neighborhood in Springfield, Tennessee, the week before Melissa Armstrong first meets her. As a volunteer for a local nonprofit, Melissa has experience with strays and plans to rescue Night and her litter within days. But nothing goes as planned. For the next six months, Melissa and a ragtag cast of characters try to trap the mutt with nets, catchpoles, spring traps, cheeseburgers, hot dogs stuffed with Benadryl, and the dog’s crying puppies. They fail so many times that Melissa is on the brink of giving up.

On a bright Phoenix morning, Elena Santiago opened her door to find her house surrounded by a platoon of federal immigration agents. Her children screamed as the officers handcuffed her and drove her away. Within hours, she was deported to the rough border town of Nogales, Sonora, with nothing but the clothes on her back. Her two-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, both American citizens, were taken by the state of Arizona and consigned to foster care. Their mother's only offense: living undocumented in the United States.

Fatherhood today is far different from previous generations. Stay-at-home dads are increasingly common, and growing numbers of men are working part-time or flextime schedules to spend more time with their children. Dads today are more emotionally and physically involved on the home front. They are "all in", and - like mothers - they are struggling with work-life balance and doing it all.

Let’s admit it: No marriage is perfect. Every couple has some misunderstandings and conflicts. However, happy couples can prevent their misunderstandings from escalating. Even if they argue emotionally, they never resort to psychological abuse. They always figure out a compromise, afterward. Some unhappy couples can’t deal with the tiniest disagreement. Any random word or action can trigger a violent conflict.

New York Times #1 best-selling authors Richard and Linda Eyre's new audiobook The Turning: Why the State of the Family Matters and What the World Can Do about It contends that the social and economic challenges faced not only in the United States, but throughout the world, are the direct result of an unprecedented and widespread turning away from family. The negative effects of this turning are apparent in the youth of the world today

Why life is harder on American families than it's been in decades? This book takes the blame away from moms and puts it where it really belongs. Pressed for time and money, unable to find decent affordable daycare, wracked with guilt at falling short of the mythic supermom ideal-working and non-working American mothers alike have it harder today than they have in decades, and they are worse off than many of their peers around the world. Why? Because they're raising their kids in a family-unfriendly nation.

Intimate and honest essays on motherhood, marriage, love, and acceptance. Brown White Black is a portrait of Nishta J. Mehra's family: her wife, who is White; her adopted child, Shiv, who is Black; and their experiences dealing with America's rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality. Her clear-eyed and incisive writing on her family's daily struggle to make space for themselves amid racial intolerance and stereotypes personalizes some of America's most fraught issues.

Hat deine Ur-Ur-Uroma eigentlich schon an Sex gedacht? Klar, denn sonst wärst du heute wahrscheinlich nicht hier! Sicher hat sie anders geflirtet als die heutige Jugend. Aber die Menschen waren früher längst nicht so prüde, wie wir manchmal denken. Liebe, Sex und nackte Körper gab es schon immer. Aber wie darüber gesprochen, gemalt und geurteilt wurde, das verändert sich im Lauf der Geschichte immer wieder. Die Ethnologin Elin Hägg nimmt uns mit auf eine erstaunliche Reise durch die (abendländische) Geschichte der Ideen, Religionen und Machtverhältnisse – immer in Bezug auf deren Auswirkungen auf das Sexleben.

In Dreams of the Overworked, Christine M. Beckman and Melissa Mazmanian offer vivid sketches of daily life for nine families, capturing what it means to live, work, and parent in a world of impossible expectations, now amplified unlike ever before by smart devices. We are invited into homes and offices, where we recognize the crushing pressure of unraveling plans, and the healing warmth of being together. Moreover, we witness the constant planning that goes into a "good" day, often with the aid of phones and apps.

Acclaimed essayist Mark Edmundson reflects on his own rite of passage as a high school football player to get to larger truths about the ways America's Game shapes its men. Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently. Football inspires confidence and direction. But football instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority.

Crazy Little Thing is a look at why we want to be in love and the burbling, boiling soup of endorphins, hormones, and neurotransmitters that spill from our brain to make us do things that would otherwise be viewed as insane. Investigative journalist Liz Langley traveled the country to research and interview singularly love-mad folks who maimed, murdered, and married.

Parenting teenagers is one of the biggest challenges parents face. New realities make becoming independent more difficult. Teens are traveling a different road and are moving at a different pace than those of previous generations. Today's cultural environment is more complicated and confusing than ever. But fear not! Family expert Jim Burns provides a handy guide for parenting teens.

Lasting Marriage is an encouraging and insightful book that will help your marriage grow and strengthen in love and service to each other. You will learn how your marriage can become one of those success stories you hear about. You will be more in love with your spouse at your 50th wedding anniversary than on your wedding day. By knowing and applying God's meaning and purpose of marriage into your relationship, you will have a lasting marriage.

For a mother who’s accustomed to having been number one in her son’s life, the arrival of a girlfriend, fiancé, or wife can be a complicated, confusing, and emotionally challenging event. Likewise, coexisting harmoniously with the mother of her partner can be an overwhelming challenge for any woman. Sons, often caught in the middle, are sometimes understandably reluctant to take sides.

A leading science writer examines how the brain's capacity reaches its peak in middle ageFor many years, scientists thought that the human brain simply decayed over time and its dying cells led to memory slips, fuzzy logic, negative thinking, and even depression.

As long as she can remember, Leah has had the mysterious feeling that she's searching for a twin - that she belongs as one of an intimate pair. It begins with friends, dance partners, and her own reflection in the mirror as she studies ballet growing up; continues with physical and emotional attractions to girlfriends in college; and leads her, finally, to Eric, whom she moves across the country for and marries. But her steadfast, monogamous relationship leaves her with questions she can't answer about her sexuality and her identity, so she and her husband decide to try an open marriage.

The kinds of families we see today are different than they were even a decade ago, some fantastically so, as paths to parenthood have been rejiggered by technology, activism, and law. In Modern Families, Joshua Gamson brings us extraordinary family creation tales - his own included - that illuminate this changing world of contemporary kinship. We meet a child with two mothers, made with one mother's egg and the sperm of a man none of them has ever met and carried by the other mother.

US families have been pushed to the wall. At the bottom of the economic ladder, poor and working-class adults aren't forming stable relationships and can't give their kids the start they need because of low wages and uncertain job prospects. Toward the top, professional parents' lives have become a grinding slog of long hours of paid work. Meanwhile their kids are overstressed by pressure to succeed and get into good colleges.

In this profoundly important, inspirational book, Dan Quayle, America's 44th Vice President, introduces us to five American families who speak bluntly - and often poignantly - about the values that give them strength. Liberal and conservative; Christian and non-Christian; Black, White, and mixed race - these families till the rich Virginia soil, walk the streets of East L.A., grapple with single motherhood, confront racial hatred, and learn to live with disabilities. They are us.