Jane Ridley Quotes

#1. We live in an age of generational turmoil. Baby-boom parents are accused of clinging on to jobs and houses which they should be freeing up for their children. Twentysomethings who can't afford to leave home and can't get jobs are attacked as aimless and immature.

Jane Ridley

#2. 'Family Secrets' is thought provoking, well written, and remorselessly intelligent.

Jane Ridley

#3. Political biography is in the doldrums. No one wants to read 800 pages or so of cradle-to-grave dead politics, especially if it's familiar stuff and has all been written about before.

Jane Ridley

#4. The main reason why historians have skated over the relationship of Victorian PMs with the press is that they haven't been looking for it. It takes a lecturer in media studies such as Paul Brighton to point out that media management was part of the job of a Victorian prime minister.

Jane Ridley

#5. Historians who write about families are usually feminists who think in terms of gender relations.

Jane Ridley

#6. Romantic love came under attack, first from the Freudians and then from the neuroscientists, who said that being in love was a chemical reaction in the brain. Marriage is no longer seen as a lifetime commitment.

Jane Ridley

#7. Adolescence was only recognised as a life stage in the early 20th century, when psychologists got down to work. Today's generational battle obscures the fact that adulthood is happening later. A new transitional stage has emerged after adolescence: the twenties.

Jane Ridley

#8. King Edward, who "smoke cigars, was addicted to and entente cordials, married a Sea King's daughter and invented appendicitis," pursued a policy of peace that "was very successful and culminated in the Great War to End War.

Jane Ridley