Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Margaret Cook Andersen, "Fertile Expectations: The Politics of Involuntary Childlessness in Twentieth-Century France" (Manchester UP, 2025)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Margaret Cook Andersen, "Fertile Expectations: The Politics of Involuntary Childlessness in Twentieth-Century France" (Manchester UP, 2025)
An engaging history of motherhood, demography, and infertility in twentieth-century France, Fertile expectations: The politics of involuntary childlessness in twentieth-century France (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Margaret Andersen explores fraught political and cultural meanings attached to the notion of an "ideal" family size. When statistics revealed a sustained drop in France's birthrate, pronatalist activists pushed for financial benefits, propaganda, and punitive measures to counter declining fertility. Situating infertility within this history, the author details innovations in fertility medicine, cultural awareness of artificial insemination, and changing laws on child adoption. These practices offered new ways of responding to infertility and formed part of a growing expectation of being able to control one's fertility and family size. This book presents the political and cultural context for understanding why private questions about when to start a family, how many children to have, and how to cope with involuntary childlessness, evolved and became part of state demographic policies.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
View all episodes
By New Books Network
4.4
1313 ratings
An engaging history of motherhood, demography, and infertility in twentieth-century France, Fertile expectations: The politics of involuntary childlessness in twentieth-century France (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Margaret Andersen explores fraught political and cultural meanings attached to the notion of an "ideal" family size. When statistics revealed a sustained drop in France's birthrate, pronatalist activists pushed for financial benefits, propaganda, and punitive measures to counter declining fertility. Situating infertility within this history, the author details innovations in fertility medicine, cultural awareness of artificial insemination, and changing laws on child adoption. These practices offered new ways of responding to infertility and formed part of a growing expectation of being able to control one's fertility and family size. This book presents the political and cultural context for understanding why private questions about when to start a family, how many children to have, and how to cope with involuntary childlessness, evolved and became part of state demographic policies.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
More shows like New Books in Science
View all
Freakonomics Radio
32,044 Listeners
Marketplace
8,766 Listeners
The Book Review
3,943 Listeners
The LRB Podcast
299 Listeners
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
4,037 Listeners
Odd Lots
1,942 Listeners
New Books in Philosophy
112 Listeners
New Books in History
210 Listeners
New Books in Military History
162 Listeners
New Books in Political Science
62 Listeners
New Books in Economics
29 Listeners
New Books in Psychoanalysis
188 Listeners
The Naked Scientists Podcast
607 Listeners
Uncanny Valley | WIRED
495 Listeners
New Books in African American Studies
163 Listeners
New Books in Art
11 Listeners
New Books in Literary Studies
24 Listeners
New Books in Intellectual History
60 Listeners
The Quanta Podcast
531 Listeners
Science Magazine Podcast
825 Listeners
Philosophy For Our Times
318 Listeners
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
4,168 Listeners
Short Wave
6,550 Listeners
The Inside Story Podcast
141 Listeners
Critics at Large | The New Yorker
636 Listeners