Every Child a Lion

One of Aesop's fables tells of the fox who taunted the lion about having so few children. "Yes," the lion replies, "but every child is a lion." This dispute is particularly appropriate to Alisa Klaus's comparative account of the early history of maternal and child welfare programs in the United States and France over a thirty-year period. Her central concerns include the ways in which pronatalism in France and fears of "race suicide" in the United States shaped public and professional interventi