The History of Childhood: A Very Short Introduction describes the differing experiences of childhood across time and place, focusing on conflict, change, war, reform, and the issues and conditions that have shaped childhood throughout history. Childhood is a constantly shifting concept; the age at which a child becomes a youth and a youth becomes an adult has varied by class, religion, ethnicity, place, and economic need. From the rules of Confucian childrearing in twelfth-century China to the struggles of children living as slaves in the Americas or as cotton mill workers in Industrial Age Britain, this VSI shows that the lives of children reveal important and sometimes uncomfortable truths about civilization.