Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and the Problems of Sex

Reproductive issues from sex and contraception to abortion and cloning have been controversial for centuries, and scientists who attempted to turn the study of reproduction into a discipline faced an uphill struggle. Adele Clarke's engrossing story of the search for reproductive knowledge across the twentieth century is colorful and fraught with conflict.

Modern scientific study of reproduction, human and animal, began in the United States in an overlapping triad of fields: biology, medicin...