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Women and Men as Friends: Relationships Across the Life Span in the 21st Century. Michael Monsour, Mahwah, NJ, Erlbaum (Series on Personal Relationships); 2002. 277 pp. ISBN 0-8058-3567-9. $27.50 (softcover).
Despite the widespread popularity of recent television sitcoms that revolve around close friendships between men and women (e.g., "Friends" and "Seinfeld"), empirically speaking little is known about the nature of cross-sex friendships. When compared with their more popular counterparts-same-sex friendships, romantic relationships, and marriage-cross-- sex friendships have remained a relatively obscure topic for research in the larger field of interpersonal relationships. Michael Monsour's book, Women and Men as Friends: Relationships Across the Life Span in the 21 st Century, part of the "Series on Personal Relationships" by Erlbaum, is an effort to remedy this situation. Monsour's book is a timely addition to the growing literature on intimate relationships. Noller, Feeney, and Peterson (2001) recently published an excellent book on personal relationships (including friendships) over the life span. Werking (1997) produced a classic book on cross-sex friendships; however, she focused primarily on the quality of these friendships in young adulthood. What makes Monsour's book unique is that it is the first to offer a life-span perspective on cross-sex friendships.
Michael Monsour reviews empirical research on female-male friendships with the overarching goal of augmenting current understanding about the reciprocal relationship between cross-sex friendships and individuals' construction of the self-concept. Monsour divides the book into a series of chapters that largely coincide with the major stages in life (i.e., early childhood, middle and late childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age). He organizes each chapter around three interrelated themes: a description of...