Raising the Dead

Reviews / Votes

In the wake of the catastrophic losses of World War II, Soviet citizens sought to rebuild their lives and families. In this groundbreaking study, Nakachi examines the efforts of women, doctors, and health officials to counter the fierce pronatalism of the state. Her book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the ongoing struggle over women's reproductive rights. * Wendy Z. Goldman, co-author of Fortress Dark and Stern: The Soviet Home Front during World War II * Raising the Dead makes a quantum leap forward in our understanding of gender, reproduction, and family planning after World War II. Distinguished by impressive archival sleuthing and crystal clear prose, Nakachi's book is a landmark study that will inform and inspire a new generation of work. * Paula A. Michaels, author of Lamaze: An International History * Mie Nakachi's brilliant book shows conclusively the combination of incompetence and insensitivity in postwar pronatalist policies that criminalized abortion, restricted divorce, and liberated men from parental responsibility for children born out of wedlock. Nakachi shows how the authorities jerry-rigged the system to try to accomplish multiple goals at the same time, leaving only doctors and women themselves to advocate for women's rights to control their own fertility. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know not only about reproduction in the context of a demographic disaster but also about the workings of Soviet policy makers who often operated from hidden motivations that they shared only in behind-the-scenes documents. * Elizabeth A. Wood, author of The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia * A monumental and gripping study of the politics of the family and reproduction in the USSR under and after Stalin. Among other things, Nakachi explains how the world's first law to recognize a woman's right to abortion came about in 1955, and in a country without a modern feminist movement. * Timothy J. Colton, author of Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know *