Book launch: Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life
ABSTRACT by Tiffany Jenkins
Who Killed Private Life?
From ancient times to our digital present, Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life traces the dramatic emergence of private life in Europe and the West and explores the reasons behind its current peril. In this sweeping history, cultural historian Tiffany Jenkins takes readers on an epic journey—from the strict separations of public and private in ancient Athens to the debates over conscience in post-Reformation Europe, the moral rigidity of the Victorian home, and the feminist movements of the 1970s that declared "the personal is political," to the boundary-blurring demands of our digital age. Contrary to common assumptions, Jenkins argues that it is not big tech that has killed private life. By delving into a broader historical context, she examines the relationship between public and private spheres and the protean concept of privacy, offering a deeper and more nuanced understanding to contemporary privacy debates.