Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life

Sociologist Jenkins (Keeping Their Marbles) delivers a substantial but still nimble exploration of the modern notion of “private life.” Jenkins traces the present-day understanding of private vs. public back to the 1500s, when Martin Luther split from the Catholic church and Thomas More was beheaded for defying Henry V on religious matters. Both men, she argues, inadvertently but “fundamentally... authorized the individual to follow their private convictions” rather than obey authority. From there, Jenkins traces a “complex interdependency” between public and private life over time, demonstrating how private life has been seen as everything from a “realm of deprivation” to a “place of danger” to a “refuge”; she attributes the greater value placed on privacy over the course of the modern era to developments such as the spread of literacy, sexual revolutions, feminism, polls, and even items as seemingly minor as mail slots in front doors. Some past views on privacy will shock modern readers—in the 17th century, for example, reporting on the immoral behavior of one’s neighbor was encouraged, even when it meant spying on sex through a peephole in the wall—but Jenkins chillingly concludes that today, as governments and corporations walk back privacies (particularly via data mining and court-ordered cracking of encrypted social media messages), society is closer to the 17th century than readers might want to believe. It adds up to an eye-opening study of the value of keeping some things unseen. (June)