Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life - Hardcover

'Brilliantly original . . . endlessly fascinating' – Alice Loxton, author of Eighteen
'An intricate cultural history . . . thought-provoking' – The Sunday Times
'Lucid and elegant' – The Telegraph

From ancient times to our digital present, Strangers and Intimates traces the dramatic emergence of private life and argues that it is now in mortal danger.

A sweeping history

Acclaimed cultural historian Tiffany Jenkins takes readers on an epic journey:

• From the strict separations of public and private in ancient Athens
• To the moral rigidity of the Victorian home
• To the feminists of the 1970s who declared that ‘the personal is political’
• To the boundary-blurring demands of our digital age

A celebration and a warning

Strangers and Intimates is both a celebration of the private realm and a warning. As social media, surveillance, and the expectations of constant openness reshape our lives, Jenkins asks a timely and profound question: Can private life survive the demands of the twenty-first century?