"Family history begins with missing persons," Alison Light writes in Common People. We wonder about those we've lost, and those we never knew, about the long skein that led to us, and to here, and to now. So we start exploring. Most of us, however, give up a few generations back…
Genealogy has become a widely popular pursuit, as millions of people now research their family history, trace their forebears, attend family reunions and travel to ancestral home sites. It has consequently become 'big business' and a significant cultural phenomenon. Yet only v…
"Paternity is a powerful metaphor for literary authority and legitimacy, and thus Geoffrey Chaucer has been granted the supposedly supreme honor of being termed the "father of English poetry." And yet, as this book argues, the idea of paternity as unchallenged authority is a far…
