Classic Papers in Child Abuse

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Summary: Classic papers in child abuse
Review: The two editors, Anne Cohn Donnelly from Chicago and Kim Oates from Sydney, both known for research and teaching activity in the field of child abuse and neglect (CAN), have compiled this important book with classic papers in the field. The book has 25 classic papers selected by the editors via a survey of a group of leaders in the field, who were asked to designate the papers or chapters that they felt had influenced them in their work and to the child protection field as a whole. The results were send to a wider international group, who were asked to rank the chosen papers, which was then compared with a search in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index over a ten year period. The 25 papers are listed in a cronological order, which conveys the history of child abuse and neglect discovery, awareness and work over the years 1946-89. The papers give you a multidisciplinary history of CAN from John Caffey’s article on “Multiple fractures in the long bones of infants suffering from chronic subdural hematoma” from 1946, when CAN was not yet “discovered” and unthinkable to the medical profession, to the last article by Cathy Spatz Widom on “Does violence beget violence ? A critical examination of the literature” in 1989. Each article is introduced by the editors with comments by 25 international clinicians, researchers or academics. The editors have done a fine job on this book, but permit us a few commentaries. We would have liked to have seen each paper starting out with the original abstract and reference. We would also have liked a little more information on the personalities behind the papers and some more history for the ones not personally involved in this history, like the story around the classic paper by C Henry Kempe on the “Battered child syndrome” from 1962, which in fact was compiled by one of his students and later “re-found” by Henry in a shoebox and published in order to make the professional world aware of abused and neglected children. Next year the International Congress on CAN will celebrate the 40 years of CAN work in Denver, where Henry was the chairman of Pediatrics. We believe this book will be a must for every professional entering the field of child abuse and neglect in order to learn the thinking of these early researchers, the history and progress in a field that has expanded enormously in the last 50 years....