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Strangers and Intimates

The Rise and Fall of Private Life
By Tiffany Jenkins
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Brief Description
Brilliantly original . . . Endlessly fascinating - Alice Loxton, author of Eighteen An intricate cultural history . . . Thought-provoking - The Sunday Times Lucid and elegant - The Daily Telegraph From ancient times to our digital present, Strangers and Intimates traces the dramatic emergence... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback

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A brilliantly original history of privacy with a simple and urgent argument: private life is a precious and sustaining resource that must be defended.

A brilliantly readable history of privacy which argues that a private life is a precious and sustaining resource that must be defended.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Brilliantly original . . . Endlessly fascinating - Alice Loxton, author of Eighteen

An intricate cultural history . . . Thought-provoking - The Sunday Times

Lucid and elegant - The Daily Telegraph

From ancient times to our digital present, Strangers and Intimates traces the dramatic emergence of private life, and argues that it is now in mortal danger.

In this sweeping history, acclaimed cultural historian Tiffany Jenkins takes readers on an epic journey, from the strict separations of public and private in ancient Athens to the moral rigidity of the Victorian home, and from the feminists of the 1970sβ€”who declared that 'the personal is political'β€”to the boundary-blurring demands of our digital age.

Strangers and Intimates is both a celebration of the private realm and a warning: as social media, surveillance and the expectations of constant openness reshape our lives, Jenkins asks a timely question: can private life survive the demands of the twenty-first century?

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529034189

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 14 May 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Picador

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 28.0mm

Width: 131.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 314g

Pages: 464

Collections

Computing & Technology Education & Reference History & Archaeology History & Military Non-Fiction Tiffany Jenkins

About the Author

Dr Tiffany Jenkins is a writer, cultural historian and broadcaster. She is the author of the acclaimed Keeping Their Marbles: How Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums and Why They Should Stay There. She's a former honorary fellow in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh and a former visiting fellow in the Department of Law at the London School of Economics. She wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 series 'A History of Secrecy' and 'Contracts of Silence', about the rise of non-disclosure agreements, and has appeared regularly as a critic on Saturday Review and Front Row. She is a trustee of the British Museum. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, the Financial Times, the Scotsman and The Spectator. She divides her time between London and Sussex. Strangers and Intimates is her third book.

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