Awards

• Winner of Whitfield Prize 2007.
• Winner of Winner of the Whitfield Book Prize 2007 Awarded the Proxime Accessit for the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Prize 2007 *Choice* Outstanding Academic Book 2007.
• Winner of Winner of the Whitfield Book Prize 2007 Awarded the Proxime Accessit for the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Prize 2007 *Choice* Outstanding Academic Book 2007.

Overview

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed a revolution in contraceptive behaviour as the large Victorian family disappeared. This book offers a new perspective on the gender relations, sexual attitudes, and contraceptive practices that accompanied the emergence of the smaller family in modern Britain. Kate Fisher draws on a range of first-hand evidence, including over 190 oral history interviews, in which individuals born between 1900 and 1930 described their marriages and sexual relationships. By using individual testimony she challenges many of the key conditions that have long been envisaged by demographic and historical scholars as necessary for any significant reduction in average family size to take place. Dr Fisher demonstrates that a massive expansion in birth control took place in a society in which sexual ignorance was widespread; that effective family limitation was achieved without the mass adoption of new contraceptive technologies; that traditional methods, such as withdrawal, abstinence, and abortion were often seen as preferable to modern appliances, such as condoms and caps; that communication between spouses was not key to the systematic adoption of contraception; and, above all, that women were not necessarily the driving force behind the attempt to avoid pregnancy. Women frequently avoided involvement in family planning decisions and practices, whereas the vast majority of men in Britain from the interwar period onward viewed the regular use of birth control as a masculine duty and obligation. By allowing this generation to speak for themselves, Kate Fisher produces a richer understanding of the often startling social attitudes and complex conjugal dynamics that lay behind the vast changes in contraceptive behaviour and family size in the twentieth century.

Full Product Details

9780199267361

Table of Contents

Reviews

...a beautifully researched monograph...Fisher has done important revisionist work Stephen Brooke, English Historical Revies Fisher's revision of the history of birth control sheds new light on the production of male identity ... One hopes that other scholars will follow Fisher's example in using oral history to figure out the individual dimensions of this major social transition. Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, Social History of Medicine This is a brave and ambitious book which breaks new ground. History Today ... a mature piece of work, which cuts no corners and includes a wide range of sources, including the Mass Observation archive and oral history. Longman-History Today Book Awards 2007 ...the themes are well illustrated and well chosen [and] highly convincing... Gigi Santow, Population Studies, Vol. 61, No. 2 a veritable compendium of good sense, judicious argument, subtle exposition, painstaking research, and exemplary thoroughness

An engaging text with a wealth of information ... impressive and important because it uses both men and women's account of sex, contraception and gender roles to challenge historiography of feminism and family planning. Hilary Young, Oral History [A] tribute to the power of oral history...extremely meticulous. London Review of Books ...a beautifully researched monograph...Fisher has done important revisionist work Stephen Brooke, English Historical Reviews Fisher's revision of the history of birth control sheds new light on the production of male identity ... One hopes that other scholars will follow Fisher's example in using oral history to figure out the individual dimensions of this major social transition. Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, Social History of Medicine This is a brave and ambitious book which breaks new ground. History Today ... a mature piece of work, which cuts no corners and includes a wide range of sources, including the Mass Observation archive and oral history. Longman-History Today Book Awards 2007 ...the themes are well illustrated and well chosen [and] highly convincing... Gigi Santow, Population Studies, Vol. 61, No. 2 a veritable compendium of good sense, judicious argument, subtle exposition, painstaking research, and exemplary thoroughness

[A] tribute to the power of oral history...extremely meticulous. London Review of Books ...a beautifully researched monograph...Fisher has done important revisionist work Stephen Brooke, English Historical Revies Fisher's revision of the history of birth control sheds new light on the production of male identity ... One hopes that other scholars will follow Fisher's example in using oral history to figure out the individual dimensions of this major social transition. Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, Social History of Medicine This is a brave and ambitious book which breaks new ground. History Today ... a mature piece of work, which cuts no corners and includes a wide range of sources, including the Mass Observation archive and oral history. Longman-History Today Book Awards 2007 ...the themes are well illustrated and well chosen [and] highly convincing... Gigi Santow, Population Studies, Vol. 61, No. 2 a veritable compendium of good sense, judicious argument, subtle exposition, painstaking research, and exemplary thoroughness

Author Information

Kate Fisher held a Research Officership at the University of Cambridge and a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford, before being appointed as lecturer in the department of history at the University of Exeter in 2000.

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