The Children Of The Dream
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean to raise a generation of children entirely outside the traditional family unit? In The Children of the Dream, renowned psychologist and child development theorist Bruno Bettelheim presents a landmark study of communal child-rearing as practised in the Israeli kibbutz, examining what happens when infants are raised from birth not by parents alone, but by the collective — cared for in children's houses, shaped by peers as much as by adults, and immersed in a society built on radical egalitarian ideals. Drawing on extensive first-hand research and interviews conducted in Israel, Bettelheim chronicles the psychological development of kibbutz-born children with rigorous scientific scrutiny and compelling narrative force, asking whether this bold social experiment produces well-adjusted, capable adults — or something more complex and harder to categorise. Bettelheim argues with characteristic intellectual courage that the kibbutz model both succeeds and unsettles Western assumptions about maternal attachment, identity formation, and the indispensable role of the nuclear family. His analysis challenges Freudian orthodoxy while simultaneously honouring it, positioning The Children of the Dream as an essential text at the intersection of psychoanalysis, sociology, and educational theory. Written with the authority of a man who survived the extremes of 20th-century history and devoted his life to understanding the inner world of children, this is a work that refuses easy conclusions — and leaves the reader questioning everything they thought they knew about how human beings are made.
Author: Bruno Bettelheim
Format: Paperback
Genre: Psychology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean to raise a generation of children entirely outside the traditional family unit? In The Children of the Dream, renowned psychologist and child development theorist Bruno Bettelheim presents a landmark study of communal child-rearing as practised in the Israeli kibbutz, examining what happens when infants are raised from birth not by parents alone, but by the collective — cared for in children's houses, shaped by peers as much as by adults, and immersed in a society built on radical egalitarian ideals. Drawing on extensive first-hand research and interviews conducted in Israel, Bettelheim chronicles the psychological development of kibbutz-born children with rigorous scientific scrutiny and compelling narrative force, asking whether this bold social experiment produces well-adjusted, capable adults — or something more complex and harder to categorise. Bettelheim argues with characteristic intellectual courage that the kibbutz model both succeeds and unsettles Western assumptions about maternal attachment, identity formation, and the indispensable role of the nuclear family. His analysis challenges Freudian orthodoxy while simultaneously honouring it, positioning The Children of the Dream as an essential text at the intersection of psychoanalysis, sociology, and educational theory. Written with the authority of a man who survived the extremes of 20th-century history and devoted his life to understanding the inner world of children, this is a work that refuses easy conclusions — and leaves the reader questioning everything they thought they knew about how human beings are made.