Julia Bowes, "Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism" (Princeton UP, 2026)

New Books in Critical Theory · May 8, 2026 · 38m

“Parental rights” is a rallying cry for today’s American conservatives, signaling opposition to mandatory vaccination and “woke” public school curricula. In Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism (Princeton UP, 2026), Dr. Julia Bowes traces the origins of the modern parental rights movement to the nineteenth century, when the introduction of compulsory schooling laws, child labor regulations, and vaccine requirements provoked a resistance rooted in the presumed right of white men to govern their homes. A wide-ranging coalition—including Irish…