The Way We Never Were Audiobook By Stephanie Coontz cover art

The Way We Never Were

American Families and the Nostalgia Trap

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Way We Never Were

By: Stephanie Coontz
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $35.09

Buy for $35.09

The definitive edition of the classic, myth-shattering history of the American family

Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the "male breadwinner marriage" is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. In The Way We Never Were, acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz examines two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues, and neither does any other era from our cultural past. This revised edition includes a new introduction and epilogue, exploring how the clash between growing gender equality and rising economic inequality is reshaping family life, marriage, and male-female relationships in our modern era.

More relevant than ever, The Way We Never Were is a potent corrective to dangerous nostalgia for an American tradition that never really existed. Economic Inequality Marriage & Long-Term Partnerships Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Social Psychology & Interactions Women United States Social justice Marriage Equality Sociology Economic disparity Discrimination Capitalism Americas Liberalism Taxation Socialism

Critic reviews

"[Coontz] approaches the subject of what we now insist up on calling 'family values' with what is, in the current atmosphere, a refreshing lack of partisan cant."—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
"Stephanie Coontz has her finger on the pulse of contemporary families like no one else in America."—Paula England, 2015-15 President, American Sociological Association
"Coontz presents fascinating facts and figures that explode the cherished myths about self-sufficient, happy, moral families."—Newsday
"Historically rich, and loaded with anecdotal evidence, The Way We Never Were effectively demolishes the normal, traditional nuclear family as neither normal nor traditional, and not even nuclear."—Nation
"A wonderfully perceptive, myth-debunking report.... An important contribution to the current debate on family values."—Publishers Weekly
"Clear, incisive, and distinguished by Coontz's personal conviction and by its vast range of cogent examples, including capsule histories of women in the labor force and of black families. Fascinating, persuasive, politically relevant."—Kirkus Reviews
"Coontz's strength is in the way she shows that families of every era have been blamed for conditions beyond their control."—San Francisco Chronicle
"[Coontz] persuasively dispels the myths and stereotypes of 'traditional' family values as the product of the postwar era."—Library Journal
All stars
Most relevant
There is a lot of information in this book. It took me a while to finish the audio. I would've like more information on the intersection of race to be included throughout the book otherwise I enjoyed it.

Interesting and Informative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It's a good book, it does a good job of deconstructing the idea that families in the past were perfect and morally pure, contrary to what conservatives think.

However, this book has so much fluff and throws out so many statistics that it makes it feel convoluted, and any individual pieces of meaningful information are hard to remember. I think this book could have been 50-60% shorter and still made a compelling case.

Great book, but...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was so thoroughly researched and written. Of course, there are those that would discard it regardless, however, some always will, even in the face of well reserached and written facts.

It had a good value production to it too. The narrator was excellent with the pacing and general telling of the book.

If you’re considering this, I think you should go for it; it’s a worthwhile read.

That tracks

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A lot more recitation of statistics than expected. That would have been good if I were studying the subject but was very tedious to listen to. Also impossible to assess the quality of the many, many studies cited, so solid conclusions are not possible.

Good info but dry

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
fantastic i loved every moment of it

wonderfully researched and very enlightening

narrator was fantastic as well

fantastic report on the dangers of nostalgia

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews