Linda Pollock

Linda Pollock, John Christie Barr Professor, is a historian of early modern England. She specializes in social history topics such as childhood, the family, emotions, religion and medicine.

Publications

Books

Affective Authority: Passions, Morality and Governance in Early Modern England, Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political  and  Social History, eds. Tim Harris, Stephen Taylor, Andy Wood, Boydell & Brewer, 2025.

With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay 1552-1620, Collins and Brown, London, 1993 and St Martin's Press, New York, 1995.
Reprinted extracts in P. Elmer & O. Grell eds., Health, Disease, and Society in Europe 1500-1800, Palgrave Macmillan & Manchester University Press, 2004.

A Lasting Relationship. Parents and Children over Three Centuries (Anthology), Fourth Estate, London, 1987 and the University of New England Press, 1987. Published in paperback, University of New England Press, 1990.

Forgotten Children: Parent-child Relations from 1500 to 1900, Cambridge University Press, 1983. Paperback edition, Cambridge Paperback Library series, 1983. Reprinted 1985, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1996. Digital edition, 2000.
Awarded a national book prize, "Standing conference on studies in education", 1984

Japanese edition of Forgotten Children, Iwanami Shoton, Tokyo, 1988.

Los Niños Olvidados: Relaciones entre Padres e hijos de 1500 a 1900, Spanish edition of Forgotten Children, Fondo de Cultura Economica, Mexico, 1990. Reprinted 1994, 2002 , 2004

Articles

“Compassion, love, and happiness: positive emotions and early modern communities”,  Parergon vol. 39, 2022, pp. 131-44.

“Emotion and ethics: the conjoined twins of early modern English culture”, forthcoming, Historical Journal.

"Children at Play in European history 1500-1900" in J. Roopnarie and P. Smith eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Play: Developmental and Disciplinary Perspectives, forthcoming 2018

"Little Commonwealths' I: The household" in Keith Wrightson ed., A Social History of England, c. 1500-c. 1750, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 60-83

"A global history of children, parents and family 1500-1900", in Nick Frost ed., The Handbook of Global Child Welfare , Routledge, 2017, pp. 3-18

"The affective life in Shakespearean England" in R. Malcolm Smuts ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Age of Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 437-57

"The practice of kindness in early modern elite society" Past and Present, no. 211, 2011, 121-58.

"Educação e ensino cultural dos Ingleses em casa de 1550 a 1800" in "Childhood and education: contemporary discourses", in Revista: Educação e Realidade, vol. 35, 2010, pp. 17-35.

"Honor, gender and reconciliation in elite culture, 1570-1700" Journal of British Studies, vol. 46, 2007, pp. 3 - 29 (ranked as number 4 in the list of most cited articles from this journal, September, 2009).

"Past children. A review of the literature on the history of childhood", reprinted from Forgotten Children in C. Jenks ed., Childhood: Critical Concepts in Sociology, Routledge, 2005, vol 1., pp. 337-57.

"Anger and the negotiation of relationships in early modern England". Historical Journal, 2004, vol. 47, pp. 567-590

"The thesis re-examined: a criticism of the literature", reprinted from Forgotten Children in Nick Frost ed., Child Welfare: Major Themes in Health and Social Welfare, Routledge, 2004.

"Parent-child relations in Europe 1500-1800", in Marzio Barbagli and David Kertzer eds., Family Life in Early Modern Times, Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 191-220.

Selected by Choice as a 2003 Outstanding Academic Title.

"Il rapporto genitori-figli" , in M. Barbagli e D. Kertzer, Storia della Famiglia in Europa dal Cinquecento alla Rivoluzione Franceses, Italian edition of Family Life in Early Modern Times, , Laterza Press, Rome, 2001.

"Rethinking patriarchy and the family in seventeenth-century England". Journal of Family History, 1998, vol. 23, pp. 3-27. [On list of most read articles]

"Childbearing and female bonding in early modern England". Social History, 1997, vol. 22, pp. 286-306.

'"Training a child in the way he/she should go: cultural transfer and child rearing within the home 1550-1800", in R. Aldrich et al eds., Education and Cultural Transmission: National Developments and International Trends in Europe since Early Modern Times, Paedagogica Historica, Supplementary Series, vol. II, 1996, pp. 79-103.

"Teacher-pupil relations in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain" in Ron Davie and David Galloway eds., Listening to Children in Education, David Fulton, London, 1996, pp. 15-28.

"Family, gender and household", Annotated bibliography in Guide to Historical Literature, American Historical Association, section 23 - British Isles, 1450-1800, Oxford University Press, 1995.

"'Living on the stage of the world': the concept of privacy in the elite of early modern England" in Adrian Wilson ed. Rethinking Social History, Manchester University Press, 1993, pp. 21-41. Published in paperback 1995.

"Embarking on a rough passage: the experience of pregnancy in early modern society" in Valerie Fildes ed., Women as Mothers in Pre-industrial England, Routledge, London, 1990, pp. 39-67.

"The younger sons of early modern England". History Today, 1989, vol. 39, pp. 23-9.

"'Teach her to live under obedience': the making of women in the upper ranks of early modern England". Continuity and Change, 1989, vol. 4, pp. 231-58. (Ranked as number 3 of most cited articles for this journal)

"'An action like a stratagem of war': courtship and marriage from the middle ages to the present day". Historical Journal, 1987, vol. 30, pp. 483-98.

"An exploratory analysis of children's diaries" in Helen Cowie ed., The Development of Children's Imaginative Writing, Croom Helm, London, 1984, pp. 70-92.

Recent Papers

2017 Remorse, repentance and sorrow in seventeenth-century England, NACBS, Denver

2017 Keynote Lecture, "Affective connections interrupted: the forging, breaking and re-making of intimate bonds in early modern England", Conference on Alternative Families: Childcare and Parental Figures in History, University of Sheffield, 9-10 February 2017

2017 "Better than sacrifice": obedience, affect and agency in early modern England, University of Durham

2014 Keynote Lecture, "Parents and children in early modern England: new questions, new approaches, new conclusions", History of Emotions, University of Queensland Node

2014 "Interpreting affect in early modern England", Conference of the Australian Historical Association, University of Queensland, Brisbane

2011 'The moral economy of thanking: the culture of gratitude in early modern England', American Historical Association, Boston

2008 "The practice of kindness in early modern elite society", Yale University.

2007 "Honor, gender and reconciliation in the seventeenth-century English elite", Humanities Research Center, Rice University