Adult childlikeness is familiar to everyone. However, childlikeness remains a little-studied and catchall concept whose more or less ameliorative or pejorative meaning can vary considerably depending on time and place, but also on disciplines. Like A Child Would Do: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Childlikeness in Past and Current Societies attempts to pierce this conceptual fog.

Navigating between classical Chinese fiction, Shakespearean characters, the arts, consumer society, psychoanalysis, evolutionary theories, interactions with computers at work, toy play, or law courts, this book provides a better understanding of the concept and highlights its continuing negotiation given its capacity to symbolize the character of our societies, notably our role and degree of freedom within these roles.