This latest work from an author known for her contributions to the new cultural history is a multidisciplinary investigation of the foundations of modern politics. "Family Romance" was coined by Freud to describe the fantasy of being freed from one's family & joining one of higher social standing. Lynn Hunt uses the term broadly to describe the images of the familial order underlying revolutionary politics. In a wide-ranging account using novels, engravings, paintings, speeches, newspaper editorials, pornographic writing & revolutionary legislation about the family, Hunt shows that politics were experienced thru the grid of the family romance.
List of Illustrations
Preface
The family model of politics
The rise & fall of the good father
The band of brothers
The bad mother
Sade's family politics
Rehabilitating the family
Epilogue: Patriarchy in the Past Tense?
Index