The Recovery of Family Life

The last half century has been devastating for American family life, to the point where one in every two American children will now be raised apart from their own married parents at some point in their lives. Scott Yenor’s  The Recovery of Family Life unveils the intellectual sources of our failed family regime and articulates a provocative new vision for family renewal in this century. Above all, he shows us how we must put children at the center of marriage and family life in the twenty-first century in this important, incisive, and thought-provoking book.

~W. Bradford Wilcox, Director, National Marriage Project and Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia

You will not agree with everything in this book. And that’s one reason to read it. Scott Yenor is provocative in the best sense, and  The Recovery of Family Life will force you to think critically and deeply. Modern sexual and familial practices have come at a cost. Yenor is willing to consider those costs, identify the underlying ideologies supporting modern practices, and propose a better way forward.

~Ryan T. Anderson, PhD, author of  When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment and Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom

Is liberal democracy ever finished working out its twin principles of liberty and equality? Scott Yenor's important new study explores the three interlocking elements of the sexual revolution--radical feminism, liberal neutrality, and sexual liberation--to show how this 'rolling revolution' undermines the foundations of a healthy and moderate political order. His research is comprehensive, and his argument at once courageous and humane. His book should be required reading for every young woman and man who seeks to understand the mysterious interplay of nature and nurture that makes for a happy life.

~Jean M. Yarbrough, Gary M. Pendy, Sr. Professor of Social Sciences, Bowdoin College

The genuine originality of Yenor’s book comes through in his incisive discussion of the relationship between the family and the polity.

~Naomi Schaeffer Riley, Commentary

It will be hard to do justice to the virtues of this excellent book--its comprehensiveness, helpful novelties, surprising insights, humor without indignation, philosophy, common sense, and its importance today.... Though practical, [Scott Yenor’s] book is rooted in theory because, as he argues, family life today is threatened by what might seem a theoretical proposition, one that very few of its partisans would avow or perhaps even recognize: that humanity will not be perfected until marriage and the family have been abolished.

~Harvey C. Mansfield, Claremont Review of Books