Elinor Accampo

The Gendered Nature of Contraception in France: Neo-Malthusianism, 1900-1920

As the first nation to undergo the fertility transition, France also experienced a demographic crisis concerning its drop in population. Contemporary reactions to the Neo-Malthusian effort to provide female contraceptives, and particularly to the feminist rhetoric of birth-control advocate Nelly Roussel, however, suggest that what was most threatening about female contraception was not the prospect of further depopulation but the idea of making motherhood a choice, thereby de-naturalizing womens bodies and threatening civilization itself.

Introduction: Confronting Modernity in Fin-de-Siècle France

As Marshall Berman so eloquently stated in All that is Solid Melts into Air (1982), paradox and contradiction define the modern experience. His definition still stands as one of the most useful for understanding the late nineteenth century as well as our own: Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology: in this sense, modernity can be said to unite all mankind. But it is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish.1

Book Review: The Power of Large Numbers: Population, Politics, and Gender in Nineteenth Century France

no extended treatment of masculine identity, even though it is singled out as one of the key themes (there is a lot on professional identity, which, admittedly, primarily concerned the men). A strength of the book, however, is a rich section on extended family and friendship networks. When the sons went to study in Paris, the family made arrangements for them to be assisted by distant kin and friends, and there is much valuable information on the way people of this rank handled their contacts with the capital. A Taste for Comfort and Status raises the usual questions about typicality that arise with any case study. Only one of the seven Lamothe children married, which seems unusual: this may mean that their strong sibling relationships were more marked than in many other families or perhaps lasted longer. It is also clear that both the lawyers and the doctor were particularly prominent and indeed atypical figures on the local scene: it is not clear that their strong ethos of service was shared by many of their colleagues. On the other hand, there is valuable material on some more generic aspects of this provincial professional group: on the operation of patronage networks; on attitudes toward law, medicine, and public service; and on the way Enlightenment ideas were filtered and used. There was potential for more investigation of late-eighteenthcentury politics, both on the local and national level: Delphin Lamothe wrote a secret protest against the Maupeou Parlement but retained his chair of law right through the period. I would also have liked to know much more about the family’s physical and social implantation in Bordeaux. The earlier chapters of the book, which repose on the letters, are well written, conveying a real sense of the world of the Lamothe brothers. Yet, overall too much still remains of the doctoral dissertation in the chapter summaries and in some of the writing. More analysis of the changes that took place in family attitudes and identities would strengthen this study, and the conclusion—barely three pages long—does not do it justice. Still, I am sure Adams will in the future offer us more glimpses of the little-known but important world she has begun to uncover.

Book Reviews : G. Robina Quale, A History of Marriage Systems. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988, pp. 400,

parable size. The enormous sums required for the integration into Israeli life of the Soviet Jewish immigrants are bound to reduce even the meager funding provided for the arab population. It would appear from both McDowal’s analysis (and subsequent developments) that Israel is more intransigent than ever regarding territorial compromise-more eager than ever to extinguish hopes for a Palestinian state. By its embrace of Saddam Hussein, the PLO has provided Israel with (what it considers) amply justification for vilifying and repudiating that organization and its adherents. With sympathy for the Palestinian cause strongly felt throughout the Middle East and in much of the Muslim world, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continues to be of the utmost importance to all scholars. McDowall’s book is a useful introduction to the history of the problem and its major aspects.