Gospel of Family Planning: An Intimate Global History

In the twentieth century, the idea that people should consciously plan (and limit) the size of their families became a global cause. Historical accounts of the global family planning movement have largely focused on the most prominent activists and those at the helm of international organizations, philanthropic foundations, and government programs. In The Gospel of Family Planning, however, historian Nicole C. Bourbonnais shifts our attention to frontline workers-doctors, social workers, nurses, fieldworkers, consultants, church groups, and volunteers-who, she compellingly shows, played a central (if complicated) role in preaching contraception around the world.

Through a mix of collective biography and microhistory, Bourbonnais visits clinics, doorsteps, and bedrooms, revealing the everyday, ground-level workings of grassroots family planning campaigns, state population control programs, and the movements for reproductive rights and justice that arose to contest them. Throughout the book, Bourbonnais invites readers to consider how the intertwined histories of missionary work, humanitarianism, feminism, decolonization, and international development shaped intimate interventions into people's reproductive lives around the world.