A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values

When Dan Quayle chastised the sitcom Murphy Brown for flouting traditional family values by having its lead give birth out of wedlock, he had a point: television had moved beyond the Nelsons to the new world of the Simpsons. That shift, along with other harbingers of social change, allowed both Democrats and Republicans to deploy apocalyptic visions of family decline and social disorder. (A factoid: premarital pregnancy rates have never fallen below 10 percent throughout our history.) In this lively reading of American social history, Gillis shows us that the good old days were never really all that good and that while family values are not in danger, it won't keep many of us from yearning for a fabulous golden age when kids minded their elders and all was right with the world.