Preface 1 Introduction: childhood in world history 2 Childhood in agricultural societies: the ?rst big changes 3 Childhood in the classical civilizations 4 Childhood in postclassical world history: the impact of religious change 5 Contacts and Contrasts in the Postclassical World 6 Forces of change and the modern model of childhood: developments in the west, eighteenth century to 1914 7 Alongside the modern model: the pressures of colonialism 8 Modern childhood in Asia: Japan adapts the new model 9 Childhood and communist revolutions 10 Childhood in the affluent societies, twentieth and twenty-?rst centuries 11 The dislocations in the twentieth and twenty-?rst centuries: children face war and violence 12 Globalization and childhoods 13 The Dilemma of Children’s Happiness 14 Conclusion: childhoods from past toward future