-Shows that attention to child welfare today is not as consistent as we might assume. [Mason's] evidence reveals a system struggling to find a clear path through conflicting political and social interests while the best interests of the child are often ignored. . . . But what are the best interests of the child? How should courts proceed when children's interests conflict with those of their parents or even of the state? . . . Such questions become intractable in a society that has lost all consensus on what family, parenthood, and childhood mean. Mason has no easy answers, but her history of custody law holds a mirror up to a society that sorely needs to look honestly at its treatment of children. -Boston Book Review -A first-rate book. Mason combines a lively style with sound scholarship as she traces the roots of contemporary child custody issues from colonial times to illuminate the cross currents of community values and the bitter legal controversies of the present. -Judith Wallerstein