1. Protecting children in time, or failing to : child abuse, child protection and modernity -- 2. Taking it onto the streets : the discovery of child death and birth of child protection, 1870-1914 -- 3. The smell of practice : child protection, the body and the experience of modernity -- 4. From day-to-day quietly and without fuss : child protection, simple modernity and the repression of knowledge of child death, 1914-70 -- 5. Child physical abuse and the return of death since the 1970s : child protection, risk and reflexive modernization -- 6. Child sexual abuse and the reflexive project of the self : child protection, individualization and life politics -- 7. Into another world : child neglect, multi-problem families and the psychosocial dynamics of late-modern child protection -- 8. Liquid welfare : child protection and the consequences of modernity.