Reading History Sideways:

Criticism and Responses

This web page brings together several documents relevant to the controversy over Arland Thornton’s 2005 monograph, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life, published by the University of Chicago Press in May 2005.

Thornton, Arland. 2001. “The Developmental Paradigm, Reading History Sideways, and Family Change.” Demography - Volume 38, Number 4, November 2001, pp. 449-465. This is a summary of Thornton’s presidential address to the Population Association of America, and provides a good overview of the arguments in the 2005 book. The full text is available to subscribers of Project Muse or Jstor.

Ruggles, Steven. 2005. “Reading History Backwards: A Comment on Thornton’s Reading History Sideways.” PowerPoint Presentation prepared for a roundtable of the November 2005 meeting of the Social Science History Association. [note: this PowerPoint is more extensive than the one reproduced in Thornton (2006) below, since he used my handout rather than the full presentation].

Thornton, Arland. 2006. “A Response to 2005 Social Science History Association Meetings Session on Reading History Sideways: the Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.” Working Paper. January 2006, posted on Thornton’s website. Thornton has also posted five other working papers that address parts of my critique, available here.

Ruggles, Steven. 2006. “Response to Thornton’s response to my critique of Reading History Sideways.” Working Paper, posted on this website on February 10, 2006.

Thornton, Arland. 2006. “A Response to 2005 Steven Ruggles’ Comments and Book Review Concerning Reading History Sideways: the Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.” Working Paper. March 2006, posted on Thornton’s website.

Ruggles, Steven. 2006. “A Brief Response to Thornton’s Response to my Response to his Response to my Critique of Reading History Sideways. Working Paper, posted on this website on March 28, 2006

Thornton, Arland. 2006. “April 2006 Response to Steven Ruggles’ Comments and Book Review Concerning Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.” Working Paper. April 2006, posted on Thornton’s website.

Published reviews and commentary:

Caldwell, John C. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12 (2006), 222-223.

Probert, Rebecca Jane. International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family. 20 (2006), 127-132.

Ruggles, Steven. Population and Development Review 32:1 (2006), 174-176.

Smith, Daniel Scott. International Review of Social History, 51 (August 2006), Forthcoming.

Morin, Richard. “When the Family Went Nuclear.” Washington Post, October 9 (2005), B05.

If others have comments on either side of this debate they would like to post on this page, send them to ruggles@umn.edu.