Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and AmericanThought 1860–1945. Nature as Model and Nature as Threat(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 348 pp., £19.95,ISBN 0–521–57434 X.

Carl Ipsen, DictatingDemography. The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1996), 281 pp., £35, ISBN0–521–15545–7.

Simon Szreter, Fertility,Class and Gender in Britain 1860–1940 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1976, 704 pp., £50, ISBN0–521–34343–7.

Alain Desrosières, Lapolitique des grands nombres, histoire de la raison statistique(Paris: La Découverte, 1993), 437 pp., FF 220; ISBN2–707–12253–X; English translation by Camille Naish,The Politics of Large Numbers. A History of StatisticalReasoning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 416 pp.,$45, ISBN 0–674–68932–1.

Paul Weindling,Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification andNazism 1870–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1989), 641 pp., £22.95, ISBN 0–521–42397–X;French translation by B. Frumer, L'Hygiène de larace (Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 301 pp., FF 160, ISBN2–707–12706–X.

Over the last ten years a seriesof social historians have published studies of the link between thedefinition of scientific categories and the implementation ofdemographic policies in Europe. This discussion of the classification ofpopulations in terms of social class, race or location (rural, urban,underprivileged areas) has complicated the traditional theories of thescientist and politician, Max Weber, and the student of‘bio-power’, Michel Foucault. Now, historians of politicalideas are finding living examples to illustrate recent advances in thesociology of science, establishing themselves at the interface betweenthe history of human health and that of population policies. The aim isto throw light on the exchange between scientists and populationmanagement: among the themes to be treated are natalism, populationism,hygienism and eugenics.