French government officials have long been known Europeans for the
among special attention they give to the state of their population.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, as Paris doubled in
size and twice suffered the convulsions of popular revolution,
civic leaders looked with alarm at what they deemed a dangerous
population explosion. After defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in
1870, however, the falling birthrate generated widespread fears of
cultural and national decline. In response, legislators promoted
larger families and the view that a well-regulated family life was
essential for France.
In this innovative work of cultural history, Joshua Cole
examines the course of French thinking and policymaking on
population issues from the 1780s until the outbreak of the Great
War. During these decades increasingly sophisticated statistical
methods for describing and analyzing such topics as fertility,
family size, and longevity made new kinds of aggregate knowledge
available to social scientists and government officials. Cole
recounts how this information heavily influenced the outcome of
debates over the scope and range of public welfare legislation. In
particular, as the fear of depopulation grew, the state wielded
statistical data to justify increasing intervention in family life
and continued restrictions on the autonomy of women.
General
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