Tarrant, Neil;
(2022)
John Christopoulos, Abortion in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. 368 pp.
[Review].
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
, 77
(4)
pp. 477-478.
10.1093/jhmas/jrac036.
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Abstract
In this work, John Christopoulos draws on a range of perspectives from medical, social, religious, and legal history to offer a rich, engaging, and detailed account of the history of abortion in early modern Italy. Handling his subject matter with care and sensitivity, he reconstructs how early modern Italians thought about and responded to women’s bodies and the experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, stillbirth, and abortion. The latter category, Christopoulos explains, encompassed not only the deliberate termination of pregnancy, but also situations in which the pregnancy was ended by accident or by violence inflicted by another party. The book is structured around three main chapters which respectively treat the themes of medical, religious, and legal responses to abortion. They are each separated by a short story drawn from the archives that provides a case study to illustrate the themes of the foregoing chapter.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | John Christopoulos, Abortion in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. 368 pp. |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/jhmas/jrac036 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jrac036 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author-accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10196560 |
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