Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920-1950 [Hardcover]

Atina Grossmann (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195056728 | ISBN-13: 978-0195056723 | Publication Date: May 11, 1995

Reforming Sex reconstructs the complicated history of a movement that has been romanticized as the harbinger of 1960s sexual radicalism and demonized as a precursor to Nazi racial policy, but mostly buried and obscured by Nazi bookburnings and repression. Relying on a broad range of sources--from police reports, films and personal interviews to sex manuals unearthed from library basements and secondhand bookstores--the book analyzes a remarkable mass mobilization during the turbulent and innovative Weimar years of doctors and laypeople for women's right to abortion and public access to birth control and sex education.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Superb....Grossmann's stellar study of German reproductive politics is a model of historical scholarship, rich description, and essential analysis. It has sharp relevance for all of us who care about the contemporary struggles for human rights and women's rights worldwide."--Women's Review of Books

"The German movement for sexual and reproductive freedom early in this century was for its time the most radical in the world, both in its progressive and in its later reactionary Nazi periods. At a moment of revival of racist eugenics, when abortion and women's sexual activity remain violently contested, Atina Grossmann's careful, insightful, and vivid study is of the greatest relevance and import."--Linda Gordon, University of Wisconsin

"Atina Grossmann's book brilliantly illuminates 20th century German history. It breaks open the established approaches to the crisis of Weimar. It shows why gender, family, and sexuality belong at the center of the historian's agenda. It places the politics of the body--as the utopia of reproductive freedom and liberated sexuality, as the pursuit of social reform and rationalized living, and as a vision of comprehensive welfare, but also as the mania for discipline and regulation, the ordering of populations, and eventually the nightmare of the Nazi drive for racialized domination--right at the center of our attention. In its telling of the story of the sex reformers and this earlier moment of women's reproductive politics, finally, it reminds us onece again why German history still matters."--Geoff Eley, University of Michigan

About the Author

Atina Grossmann is an Associate Professor of History at Columbia University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 11, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195056728
• ISBN-13: 978-0195056723
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,567,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewing Sex, April 29, 2004

By 

MIchelle Vecchio (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920-1950 (Paperback)

This work serves as both an incredible study of German feminist history, but also as an interesting look into the social construction of birth control in a rather atypical Western nation. Grossmann is clear and concise, chronicling the period by major players and important legislation, focusing mainly on the movement to reform Paragraph 218 (the anti-abortion clause in the Civil Code) but also touching upon satellite issues, such as eugenics, cultural backlash, and of course the effects of the Third Reich. This book is as equally informative as it is interesting. Overall a great read.