..".a richly textured analysis of medical and lay abortion discourses and practices, artistic representations of the procedure, and of women's, particularly lower-class women's, own perceptions and experiences of abortion. Skilfully using an impressive variety of sources, Usborne provides a meticulous, insightful, and lively study that questions some of the continuing assumptions about the Weimar Republic.and provides an exciting example of how to approach the history of the body." . Medical History "Based on a careful reading of court files, this investigation reveals a rich and often ambiguous repertoire of perceptions and descriptions...Cultures of Abortion is not only the seminal study on one of the most contested and high-profile issues in Weimar politics, it is also a superb demonstration of how 'gender' can be used to complicate well established historical narratives." . German History "With inspiration from Alltagsgeschichte(history of the everyday) and body history, Usborne presents a fascinating collection of stories about how abortion was practiced in both rural and urban, medicalized and folk-healing contexts... It] performs several valuable services. It brings us far closer to the actual experiences of Weimar women who underwent abortions than we have ever been before, it usefully questions our tendency to respect complex medical procedures over simpler but often just as effective techniques, and it provides considerable evidence that the practice and social acceptance of abortion were far more widespread in this period than previously appreciated." . Bulletin of the History of Medicine "This revealing study teases out the various ways that official discourses often clashed with women s everyday experiences and attitudes towards abortion...Overall, this monograph is an important addition for any scholar interested in abortion, the body, medical discourses, gender and modern Germany." . H-Soz-u-Kult "Usborne provides a vivid picture not only of...individuals, but of the communities that they lived in and the social networks that facilitated their relationships and contacts. Many of her conclusions are fascinating... a] compelling book." . German Studies Review "The book includes introductory and concluding chapters that effectively place the story in the historiography of modern Germany and of modern abortion and, more broadly, the female body. Usborne's monograph contains much of worth and interest for scholars and students of modern Germany, gender relations, sexuality, medicine, and, certainly, abortion." . American Historical Review Abortion in the Weimar Republic is a compelling subject since it provoked public debates and campaigns of an intensity rarely matched elsewhere. It proved so explosive because populationist, ecclesiastical and political concerns were heightened by cultural anxieties of a modernity in crisis. Based on an exceptionally rich source material (e.g., criminal court cases, doctors' case books, personal diaries, feature films, plays and literary works), this study explores different attitudes and experiences of those women who sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and those who helped or hindered them. It analyzes the dichotomy between medical theory and practice, and questions common assumptions, i.e. that abortion was "a necessary evil," which needed strict regulation and medical control; or that all back-street abortions were dangerous and bad. Above all, the book reveals women's own voices, frequently contradictory and ambiguous: having internalized medical ideas they often also adhered to older notions of reproduction which opposed scientific approaches."

Abortion in the Weimar Republic is a compelling subject since it provoked public debates and campaigns of an intensity rarely matched elsewhere. It proved so explosive because populationist, ecclesiastical and political concerns were heightened by cultural anxieties of a modernity in crisis. Based on an exceptionally rich source material (e.g., criminal court cases, doctors' case books, personal diaries, feature films, plays and literary works), this study explores different attitudes and experiences of those women who sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and those who helped or hindered them. It analyzes the dichotomy between medical theory and practice, and questions common assumptions, i.e. that abortion was "a necessary evil," which needed strict regulation and medical control; or that all back-street abortions were dangerous and bad. Above all, the book reveals women's own voices, frequently contradictory and ambiguous: having internalized medical ideas they often also adhered to older notions of reproduction which opposed scientific approaches.

In the first three decades of this century Germany was concerned to protect its Volkskorper, the body politic, from the ravages of a social "disease" which affected all western Europe. This "disease" was a decline in the birth rate. The "solution" to this "disease" involved interfering with the Frauenkorper, the female body. German women's sexuality was to be controlled so that the number of healthy children required for a powerful state would be produced. However the politics of reproduction carried a potential conflict between Volkskorper and Frauenkorper, between collective and individual interests. This conflict is central to this study which analyses the tactics which the German state and its agencies used to regulate the size and balance of population to accord with their social, economic and political beliefs rather than with the views and wishes of individuals. During the Weimar Republic individual women and families were the target of intervention in four different areas of policy those of maternity, sexuality, contraception and abortion. In this study birth control is understood to encompass all the popular practices of avoiding unwanted children as well as the two differ

This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. By taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the invention of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

This volume is a collection based on the contributions to witchcraft studies of Willem de Blecourt, to whom it is dedicated, and who provides the opening chapter, setting out a methodological and conceptual agenda for the study of cultures of witchcraft (broadly defined) in Europe since the Middle Ages. It includes contributions from historians, anthropologists, literary scholars and folklorists who have collaborated closely with De Blecourt. Essays pick up some or all of the themes and approaches he pioneered, and apply them to cases which range in time and space across all the main regions of Europe since the thirteenth century until the present day. While some draw heavily on texts, others on archival sources, and others on field research, they all share a commitment to reconstructing the meaning and lived experience of witchcraft (and its related phenomena) to Europeans at all levels, respecting the many varieties and ambiguities in such meanings and experiences and resisting attempts to reduce them to master narratives or simple causal models. The chapter 'News from the Invisible World: The Publishing History of Tales of the Supernatural c.1660-1832' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. By taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the "invention" of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

This book analyses how the Weimar Republic put Germany in the forefront of social reform and women's emancipation with wide-ranging maternal welfare programmes and labour protection laws. Its enlightened policy of family planning and liberalised abortion laws offered women a new measure of control over their lives. But the new politics of the body also increased state intervention, the power of the medical profession and the tendency to sacrifice women's rights to national interests whenever the Volk seemed in danger of 'racial decline'.