The Birth of the Pill
11 February 2016Imprint: Pan
Synopsis
In the winter of 1950, Margaret Sanger, then seventy-one, and who had campaigned for women's right to control their own fertility for five decades, arrived at a Park Avenue apartment building. She had come to meet a visionary scientist with a dubious reputation more than twenty years her junior. His name was Gregory Pincus.
In The Birth...
Details
11 February 2016400 pages
9781447234814Imprint: Pan
Reviews
Brilliant ... reads like a thriller ... For all the criticisms levelled at it in later years, the Pill's philosophical impact has been as significant as its physical effect. Its advocates deserve this vivid and life-affirming history.Joan Smith, Observer
Riveting ... written with pace and clarity, The Birth of the Pill is a vivid portrait of four brilliant and courageous misfits.Frances Wilson, Daily Telegraph
Rousing and involving ... a reminder of just how hard-fought, cobbled-together and compromise-ridden are the histories of some of the social structures we take for granted.Independent on Sunday
Jonathan Eig's vivid book is a rebuke to all those who lambast the Pill for unleashing promiscuity, family break-up and other Sixties sexual revolutionary sins: he reminds us that for women the pre-contraceptive world was vicious, poor and hard.Janice Turner, The Times
