Orphans A History [Hardcover]

Orphans have often been beneficiaries of charity and compassion--but society has also punished, abused and ill-treated them. Attitudes behind this maltreatment are rooted in ideas that those without parents are disruptive, malevolent, and in need of discipline.
Drawing on historic documents, interviews and memoirs, Jeremy Seabrook charts history's changing and often loose definitions of orphans, and explores their many makers --from natural or man-made catastrophes to the State, charity, and other social forces that have separated children, especially the poor, from their close kin.
But this history is not only one of suffering:Orphansalso reveals the uncounted millions taken in and loved by relatives, neighbors or strangers. Freed from constraints and driven by insecurity, many orphans--including Nelson Mandela, Marilyn Monroe and Steve Jobs--have led remarkable lives.

Introduction

PART ONE: ORPHANS

1. Orphans


2. The Care of Orphans

3. Orphans of the Rich


PART TWO: ORPHANS IN BRITAIN

4. The Poor Law, 1601-1834

5. After 1834

6. Philanthropic Abduction


7. War and the Orphans of Strife


8. The End of An Epoch

PART THREE: ORPHANINGS OF MODERNITY

9. Social Fosterings


10. A Millenial Re-structuring

A stinging history of abandonment. --The Sunday Times

Full of heartrending examples of suffering. --Spectator

A compelling, comprehensively researched, world-wide history of orphans, past and present. The many first-hand accounts are harrowing, and Seabrook's clear compassionate prose lets the bleak facts speak for themselves. --Jacqueline Wilson, bestselling children's author

Impassioned and assertive, Seabrook's book draws extensively on first-hand accounts from those who have been orphaned by church, state, voluntary organizations and the market as much as by death of parents. Rootel$