The Cherry Tree by Adrian Bell

The Cherry Tree by Adrian Bell

A provocative survey of marriage and what it has meant for society, politics, religion, and the home.
For ten thousand years, marriage--and the idea of marriage--has been at the very foundation of human society. In this provocative and ambitious book, Susan Squire unravels the turbulent history and many implications of our most basic institution. Starting with the discovery, long before recorded time, that sex leads to paternity (and hence to couplehood), and leading up to the dawn of the modern love marriage, Squire delves into the many ways men and women have come together and what the state of their unions has meant for history, society, and politics - especially the politics of the home.
This book is the product of thirteen years of intense research, but even more than the intellectual scope, what sets it apart is Squire's voice and contrarian boldness. Learned, acerbic, opinionated, and funny, she draws on everything from Sumerian mythology to Renaissance theater to Victorian housewives' manuals (sometimes all at the same time) to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic view of the many things marriage has been and meant. The result is a book to provoke and fascinate readers of all ideological stripes: feminists, traditionalists, conservatives, and progressives alike.

Adrian Bell (1901-1980) was born in Lancashire, grew up in London, and was educated at Uppingham School which he hated. His father, news editor of the Observer, was a republican and a socialist and had no truck with university education. His son was to do something useful; in 1920 he went to East Anglia to work as a farm apprentice. He subsequently became a farmer himself. These experiences provide the material for his famous rural trilogy, Corduroy, Silver Ley and The Cherry Tree. In total he wrote over twenty-five books, he also set the first Times in 1930 and continued to devise crosswords for the paper for the next thirty years.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780571240821
ISBN 10	0571240828
Title	The Cherry Tree
Author	Adrian Bell
Series	A Rural Trilogy
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Faber & Faber
Year published	2008-05-29
Number of pages	160
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable