The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex

by : Jonathan Eig |

The birth-control pill has been called the most important invention of the twentieth century. Yet its creation was anything but certain. This is the story of the eclectic group who created the pill against overwhelming odds: Gregory Pincus, the young scientist who was fired from Harvard University and forced to launch his own lab in a garage; Margaret Sanger, the radical feminist whose beliefs about sex frightened the old guard; Katharine McCormick, the philanthropist with a troubled past who bankrolled the research; and John Rock, the Catholic doctor with movie-star looks who battled his own church to win public support. Their story is told here with remarkable detail and narrative force by one of America s foremost popular historians. Jonathan Eig delivers both a gripping scientific suspense story and a powerful social and cultural history.