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[gryphonrhi]

Because this is faster than sending you to read Boswell's books, let me offer this link to a summary of his arguments in Same-Sex Unions in Preindustrial Europe. The Kindness of Strangers is also excellent and somewhat... unsettling if you're adopted. (And yes, there are footnotes everywhere. As mile markers of academic skirmishes, I find them

Comments

[kanjin]

I may be slow, but why is it unsettling?

[gryphonrhi]

Well, it disturbed me to hear how many babies were being abandoned, and how recently. Comments about wolf packs of abandoned children in 1980s Russia. ::shrug:: May just be me it disturbs, then, sorry, Lelia.

[kanjin]

Okay, that I get. It wasn't in the summary, so I was wondering... there but for the grace of Someone we go, right? Then again, it wasn't always like that. Ancient Rome and Greece had an arrangement which allowed a rather basic form of adoption, and in Florence there was something similar.

[gryphonrhi]

::nodding:: Exactly. And he starts with Rome and Greece, but not all of those children were taken in, honestly. It just disturbs me.

[twistingflame]

As I'm always looking for interesting things to read, thank you kindly. (My amazon wish list thanks you too.)

[gryphonrhi]

You're quite welcome! I enjoyed Boswell's writing in those. (Haven't read his others.)