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Man's World

Radium Age

Man's World

by Charlotte Haldane

Introduction by Philippa Levine

Paperback

$19.95

Paperback

ISBN: 9780262547635

Pub date: March 12, 2024

Publisher: The MIT Press

296 pp., 5 x 8 in, 0 b&w illus.

Rights: for sale in the US only

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eBook

$19.99

eBook

ISBN: 9780262378116

Pub date: March 12, 2024

Publisher: The MIT Press

296 pp., 5 x 8 in, 0 b&w illus.

Rights: for sale in the US only

Penguin Random House

296 pp., 5 x 8 in, 0 b&w illus.

Paperback
9780262547635
Published: March 2024
Publisher: The MIT Press
Rights: for sale in the US only

$19.95

eBook
9780262378116
Published: March 2024
Publisher: The MIT Press
Rights: for sale in the US only

$19.99

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Penguin Random House
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Bookshop.org
Indiebound
Indigo
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Description
Author(s)
Praise

In a eugenics-driven future society, will one young woman's defiance make a difference?

In the not-too-distant future, England's population quality and quantity are under scientific control: Only those deemed the fittest are permitted to procreate. Women are either groomed to be “vocational mothers,” or sterilized and put to other uses. Written by an author married to one of the world's most prominent eugenics advocates, this ambivalent adventure anticipates both Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale. When a young woman rebels against her conditioning, can she break free?

Charlotte Haldane (1894–1969) was a journalist who advocated for divorce reform and married women's employment. . . while also idealizing motherhood. In 1926, the year that Man's World was published, she married the eminent biologist J. B. S. Haldane. Her 1927 book, Motherhood and Its Enemies, made a progressive argument for easier access to contraceptives for women . . . while enraging feminists by arguing that only after having borne children could a woman be regarded as “normal.” She went on to found the Science News Service, and reported on World War II from the Russian Front.

Philippa Levine is Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and Ideas, and Director of British, Irish, and Empire Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of, among other books, Eugenics: A Very Short Introduction (2017), The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset (3rd edition, 2019), and the forthcoming The Tree of Knowledge: Science, Art and the Naked Form. With Alison Bashford, she is coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (2010).

“The whole of human relations are regulated by science in this book, and the process appears to be successful and quite inhuman.”
The Spectator (1926)

“A volatile admixture of feminist revelations with racially biased eugenic theorizing, nearly a century after its first publication, Man's World offers unique insight into its historical moment—and our own.”
Alexandra Minna Stern, Professor of English and History, UCLA; Founder and Co-Director of the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab

“Haunting, complex, profound, and relevant, Man's World is a compelling novel that forwards intriguing commentary on questions of gender, race, and social order.”
ForeWord Reviews

“Remains deeply relevant nearly a century after it was first published.”
Reactor Magazine

“A dystopian conundrum and an alarming read.... A book over which Marjorie Taylor Greene and Judith Butler could break bread, and then invite the ghosts of Michel Foucault, Margaret Sanger, and Hugh Hefner for an after-dinner digestif. It's that weird.”
New York Sun

“MIT Press's splendid Radium Age imprint of science fiction spotlights yet another eerily resonant title.... The new foreword is essential context.”
Zoomer Magazine

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Radium Age

Man's World

Paperback

$19.95

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Radium Age

Man's World

Paperback

$19.95

eBook

$19.99

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