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

Atina Grossmann (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195121244 | ISBN-13: 978-0195121247 | Publication Date: November 20, 1997

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 once again why German history still matter."--Geoff Eley, University of Michigan

"This study contains many nuggets of useful and suggestive information."--American Historical Review

"Grossmann's account of the fate of the exiled sex reformers is particularly poignant, her gender analysis especially convincing. In a time of much discourse on reproductive technology and the chances and dangers of a technologized society, this thorough and exciting study of the use and abuse of eugenics, birth control, and population policies in Germany comes at the right time."--Central European History

"This study is enriched by Grossmann's conscious attempt to place the German sex-reform movement in an international context. She skillfully demonstrates how external factors influenced both the ideas and the actual policies of German sex reform...has produced a compendium of fascinating information about the organization and administration of German sex reform."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"For the reader interested in sexual politics, birth control, and abortion rights, Grossmann's study is a brilliant and absolutely central text that will certainly become a cornerstone of feminist scholarship in these areas."--Signs

"[a] superb study of the medical and political history of abortion-reform and birth-control movements in Weimar Germany....this is a splendid treatise and a valuable contribution to the historiography of sexuality and of modern Germany."--Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"Alongside a comprehensive and stimulating account of the movement's campaigns and activities, she attempts to force us to place the body at the center of political discourse and thus begin to alter fundamentally our interpretation of modern German history. In this respect, Grossmann's book is a fine and largely successly attempt to gender the writing of history."--Gender and History

"In this thoughtful investigation, Atina Grossmann stresses the international context of the sex reform movement of the time."--erman Studies Review

About the Author

Atina Grossmann is at Columbia University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 20, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195121244
• ISBN-13: 978-0195121247
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 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: #1,384,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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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.