Awards

• Commended for L.A. Times Book Prize (Science/Technology) 2011
• Commended for Pulitzer Prize (Nonfiction) 2012

Overview

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9781586488505

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Reviews

<p> Kirkus Review, April 15, 2011<br> A hard-hitting, eye-opening study that not only paints a dire future of a world without girls but traces the West's role in propagating sex selection.... Hvistendahl's important, even-handed expose considers all sides of the argument and deserves careful attention and study. <p>Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University<br> Unnatural Selection is an important book and a fascinating read. Mara Hvistendahl is a delightful writer: witty, engaging, and acute. But the tale she tells is deeply disturbing. Asia alone is missing 160 million women and girls, a number equal to the entire female population of the United States. According to Hvistendahl, the culprit is less deeply rooted cultural gender bias than rising wealth, elite attitudes, and Western influence and technology. Development, at least for the coming decades, will produce not only fewer children overall, but als

<p> A hard-hitting, eye-opening study that not only paints a dire future of a world without girls but traces the West's role in propagating sex selection.... Hvistendahl's important, even-handed expose considers all sides of the argument and deserves careful attention and study. -- Kirkus Review, April 15, 2011<p> Unnatural Selection is an important book and a fascinating read. Mara Hvistendahl is a delightful writer: witty, engaging, and acute. But the tale she tells is deeply disturbing. Asia alone is missing 160 million women and girls, a number equal to the entire female population of the United States. According to Hvistendahl, the culprit is less deeply rooted cultural gender bias than rising wealth, elite attitudes, and Western influence and technology. Development, at least for the coming decades, will produce not only fewer children overall, but also many fewer girls. The result is a future for many parts of the world, from India to China, Azerbaijan to Albania, where bride

Kirkus Review, April 15, 2011 A hard-hitting, eye-opening study that not only paints a dire future of a world without girls but traces the West's role in propagating sex selection.... Hvistendahl's important, even-handed expose considers all sides of the argument and deserves careful attention and study. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University Unnatural Selection is an important book and a fascinating read. Mara Hvistendahl is a delightful writer: witty, engaging, and acute. But the tale she tells is deeply disturbing. Asia alone is missing 160 million women and girls, a number equal to the entire female population of the United States. According to Hvistendahl, the culprit is less deeply rooted cultural gender bias than rising wealth, elite attitudes, and Western influence and technology. Development, at least for the coming decades, will produce not only fewer children overall, but also many fewer girls. The result is a future for many parts of the world, from India to China, Azerbaijan to Albania, where brides are much more likely to be bought, women are much more likely to be trafficked, and men are much more likely to be frustrated. For the present, women who are pro-choice must confront the stark reality that the availability of ultrasound and ready abortion are sharply reducing the number of women in the world. Stephen J. Dubner, author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics Yes, it's a rigorous exploration of the world's 'missing women, ' but it's more than that too: an extraordinarily vivid look at the implications of the problem. Hvistendahl writes beautifully, with an eye for detail but also the big picture. She has a fierce intelligence but, more important, a fierce intellectual independence; she writes with a hard edge but no venom - rather, a cool and hard passion. Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide A fascinating and thoroughly rese

Author Information

Mara Hvistendahl's writing has appeared in Harper's, The New Republic, Scientific American, the Financial Times magazine, Popular Science, Foreign Policy, and the Los Angeles Times. A correspondent for the Chronicle of Higher Education and former contributing editor at Seed magazine, Mara has won an Education Writers Association award and been nominated for the Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award. She first lived in Asia over a decade ago, when her studies took her to Beijing. She has spent half of the years since then in China, a base from which she reported extensively from around the continent.

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