The struggle for privacy

Tiffany Jenkins's wonderful Strangers and Intimates charts the rise and fall of the private sphere.

Book review by Neil Davenport.

Excerpt:

Born out of the Protestant Reformation and further developed during the Enlightenment, the private sphere was once a refuge from the public world, a space in which to think and reflect freely. A space in which one developed one’s autonomy. That space, Jenkins argues, is now vanishing before our eyes – and we’re no longer even sure what we’ve lost.