Philippe Aries

Philippe Aries showed a profound interest in History, particularly in cultural History. He is counted among the most original French historians of the twentieth century. His main interest was focused on the study of a broader history of the culture of family life, where he paid close attention to the parent/ child relationship. He wrote L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Regime in 1960 where he explained that the family was a dynamic institution that had changed throughout time and had become a smaller and more intimate unit in a private sphere that was apart from public life. I found Aries' argument that the idea of childhood is a recent invention fascinating. He explains that in the Middle Ages children were shown no particular attention in family life and that gradually, over the centuries of the early modern era the personal development of the child came to be nurtured which then turned the child into the center of the family's attention. To think that a child was not always a family's center of attention is quite strange. Aries was interested and fascinated by the changing realities of the present age and eager to put them into historical perspective.

How can/ does History change over time? What can influence these changes?