Fatherhood

An Economist, GQ and Times Book of the Year 2025

An ambitious history of masculinity and family, from the Bronze Age to the contemporary 'crisis of men', Fatherhood dares to offer a more caring and affirmative vision of the roles men play at home and in the world.

'Superbly intelligent . . . a rewarding Sapiens-style big history' - The Sunday Times

'A lightness of touch that recalls Bill Bryson or Craig Brown at their non-fiction best' - The Observer

What is fatherhood, and where did it come from? How has the role of men in families and society changed across thousands of years? What does the history of fatherhood reveal about what it means to be a dad today?

From the anxious philosophers of ancient Athens and Henry VIII's obsessive quest for an heir, to Charles Darwin's theories of human origins, Bob Dylan's take down of 'The Man', and beyond, historian Augustine Sedgewick shows how successive generations of men have shaped our understanding of what it means to be and have a father, and in turn our ideas of who we are, where we come from and what we are capable of.