Lamaze: An International History by Paula Michaels

JUDGES' COMMENTS

This exceptionally fine book traces the emergence of psychoprophylactic approaches to childbirth in the Soviet Union and their translation to France under the sponsorship of the obstetrician Frederic Lamaze. Paula Michaels then traces the ideological laundering of Soviet methods in the United States, where ‘Lamaze’ became a byword for progressive or ‘natural’ approaches to birth. Michaels tells this story within a richly woven context, which encompasses the Cold War, the 1950s culture of consensus, the 1960s culture of conflict and the changing roles of women and the family in a post-war world.

This is a wonderful example of imaginative research, of a scholar noticing an historical problem, a post-war contradiction, and producing a powerful piece of global history. Based on wide research in archives in Russia, the Ukraine, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, Michaels has produced a complex and persuasive argument that explains Lamaze’s international appeal while not only connecting the histories of countries but also of science, medicine, popular culture and political ideology.