By William Pollack. 447 pp. New York, Random House, 1998. $24.95. ISBN 0-375-50131-2.
It was probably inevitable, but is nonetheless welcome, thatthe troubled American conversation about the sexes would oneday open up into a thoughtful consideration of what boys arefundamentally like and how they might best thrive. Until justpast the midpoint of this century, the health and educationalestablishments drew their analyses from and directed their prescriptionsto children generally. Sex-related peculiarities and differenceswere implicitly held to be less compelling than the universalityof childhood experience. Thus, classic guides to child developmentfrom Benjamin Spock to Erik Erikson discuss childhood more orless generically. And although Erikson might . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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