Contents; List of figures; Abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Mothers, Midwives, and Mysteries; 3. Abortions, Witches, and Catholics: Reproduction and Revolution; 4. 'Is not your Lordship with child too?': Pregnant Fathers and Fathers of Science; 5. Imagining Mothers; 6. Breeding Scottish Obstetrics in Dr Smellie's London; 7. Revolutionary Bodies in the Britain of George III; 8. Sex, Science, and Race; 9. The State Takes Charge: Conceived, Consummated, Counted; 10. Epilogue; Bibliography; Index
Summary
Birthing the Nation analyses two intertwined narratives that shaped eighteenth-century British life: the development of the modern British state, and the emergence of the man-midwife as the pre-eminent authority over sex and childbirth. By exploring peculiar episodes in the history of the reproductive body and the body politic, from stories of pregnant men to rumours that a midwife had foisted a 'suppositious' child on the nation as the Prince of Wales, this original and. provocative work proposes how national, religious, ethnic, and gendered identities were experienced through and symbolized
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 315-335) and index
