Nationalizing sex

Richard Togman's ambitious book, Nationalizing sex: fertility, fear, and power, is a wide-ranging intellectual history of the discourse and praxis of ‘natalism’. For Togman, all states—whether monarchies, autocracies or democracies—have treated their subjects and citizens like one undifferentiated breeding mass, to be either encouraged or suppressed. The author promises to examine theories of fertility in the national and international context, using a wide range of case-studies from around the world, with a focus on France, Germany, Russia/USSR, India and China. This is a sweeping history, beginning in 1600 and extending to the present day, interrogating pro-natalist and anti-natalist policies in both the global North and South. I began reading this book with great anticipation, since the description promised an informative exploration of the ways states have historically viewed the concept of ‘the population’, and how different political and economic elites have tried (unsuccessfully) to shape human fertility decisions. As a scholar of the global history of women's rights, particularly in eastern Europe, I was keen to read a political scientist's take on the historical production of state discourses about fertility and appropriate family size. Although the book is packed with fascinating facts, figures and historical anecdotes, I fear its breadth undermines the depth of the specific case-studies

Autocracy · Context (archaeology · Democracy · Fertility · Political science · Politics · Population · Power (physics · Reactionary · Sociology · World history · Demography · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law

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