Research Catalog

Title

Contraception : a history / Robert Jütte ; translated by Vicky Russell.

Author

Jütte, Robert.

Publication

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, c2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Russell, Vicky.

Description

x, 255 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

"In this new book Robert Jutte offers a history of contraception from the ancient world to the present day. He distinguishes two broad phases: first, a long phase, extending from the ancient world up to the eighteenth century, in which birth control was part of a traditional form of sexual knowledge - what Jutte calls, following the French social philosopher Michel Foucault, the 'ars erotica'. In the second phase, which began in the nineteenth century, practices of birth control are increasingly shaped by the emerging models of scientific knowledge, while still retaining some vestiges of the erotic arts."--Jacket.

Uniform Title

Lust ohne Last. English

Alternative Title

Lust ohne Last.

Subjects

• History
• Infertility
• Fertility
• Family Planning Services > history
• Contraception > history
• Birth control > History
• Contraception > History

Genre/Form

History

Note

• "First published in German as Lust ohne Last: Geschichte der Empfängnisverhütung von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart and copyright Verlag C.H. Beck oHG, München c2003"--T.p. verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [237]-246) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• List of illustrations -- Illustration acknowledgements -- Foreword -- Introduction -- 1. Ars erotica : the early art of contraception -- The economics of sexual reproduction : birth control in the ancient world? -- Calls for greater fertility : origin of the ethics of procreation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- The not so secret wisdom of ancient medicine -- Poetic truth : deliberate infertility as a theme in ancient literature -- Unfruitful activities : 'suppositories for women' and herbal potions -- 2. Transformations : the supposed repression of knowledge about contraception in the Middle Ages and early modern times -- A history of demographics and the origins of birth control -- Secreta mulierum : female wisdom on pregnancy and contraception -- Sexual desire and atonement : the theology of the 'sinful flesh' -- Castration, condoms, Casanovas : old and new methods of contraception.
• 3. The beginnings of scientia sexualis in the nineteenth century : the impact of moral and political imperatives on the debate about contraception -- (Neo)Malthusianism and its demographical implications -- A fresh approach to knowledge : sex education pamphlets and their readers -- Sexual politics : intensified control and resistance to it -- The practice of 'being careful' : between tradition and progress -- 4. An everyday regime : the 'democratization' of birth control in the twentieth century -- The promise of deliverance : contraception as emancipation -- The 'nationalization' of contraception : enforced sterilization and national birth control programmes -- Changes in sexual morality and the waning influence of religion -- Simultaneous existence of old and new methods of contraception -- 5. Future prospects -- The 'pill for men' : the contraceptive of the future? -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

ISBN

• 074563270X
• 9780745632704
• 0745632718 (pb.)
• 9780745632711 (pb.)

LCCN

^^2008271247

OCLC

• 71541738
• SCSB-11615933

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library