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The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History

Approaches, Contexts and Perspectives

Tracey Loughran editor Gayle Davis editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Palgrave Macmillan

Published:12th Sep '17

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History cover

This ground-breaking, interdisciplinary volume provides an overdue assessment of how infertility has been understood, treated and experienced in different times and places. It brings together scholars from disciplines including history, literature, psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences to create the first large-scale review of recent research on the history of infertility. Through exploring an unparalleled range of chronological periods and geographical regions, it develops historical perspectives on an apparently transhistorical experience. It shows how experiences of infertility, access to treatment, and medical perspectives on this ‘condition’ have been mediated by social, political, and cultural discourses. The handbook reflects on and interrogates different approaches to the history of infertility, including the potential of cross-disciplinary perspectives and the uses of different kinds of historical source material, and includes lists of research resources to aid teachers and researchers. It is an essential ‘go-to’ point for anyone interested in infertility and its history. 

Chapter 19 is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

“The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility demonstrates how infertility research can intersect with these and other areas of inquiry, and offer fresh new perspectives on our understandings of family formation in past and contemporary societies.” (Jane Adams, Health and History, Vol. 20 (2), 2018)


“The 30 essays in this book … cover a broad range of topics in the area of infertility, starting with the very definition of the problematic notion of infertility. … Historians, specialists of literature, and historians of art, for example, will find here a key to read multiple … aspects of history. Specialists in medical ethics and legislation also will consult the work with great benefit, as it aptly frames the topic and opens it to future developments.” (Alain Touwaide, Doody's Book Reviews, December, 2017)

ISBN: 9781137520791

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 1190g

663 pages

1st ed. 2017