Contraception

"In this new book Robert Jutte offers a history of contraception from the ancient world to the present day. He distinguishes two broad phases: first, a long phase, extending from the ancient world up to the eighteenth century, in which birth control was part of a traditional form of sexual knowledge - what Jutte calls, following the French social philosopher Michel Foucault, the 'ars erotica'. In the second phase, which began in the nineteenth century, practices of birth control are increasingly shaped by the emerging models of scientific knowledge, while still retaining some vestiges of the erotic arts."--Jacket.