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Conceiving Histories (Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present)
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Product Details
Author:
Isabel Davis, Anna Burel
Format:
Hardcover
Pages:
304
Publisher:
MIT Press (March 4, 2025)
Language:
English
Audience:
General/trade
ISBN-13:
9780262049481
ISBN-10:
0262049481
Weight:
32.4oz
Dimensions:
7.37" x 10.3" x 1.02"
File:
RandomHouse-PRH_Book_Company_PRH_PRT_Onix_full_active_D20260405T171353_155746861-20260405.xml
Folder:
RandomHouse
List Price:
$44.95
Country of Origin:
United States
Case Pack:
14
As low as:
$34.61
Publisher Identifier:
P-RH
Discount Code:
A
QuickShip:
Yes
Pub Discount:
65
Imprint:
The MIT Press
Overview
A fascinating and beautifully illustrated account of trying to conceive in both the past and the present.
Inspired by the author’s own experiences, Conceiving Histories brings together history, personal memoir, and illustration to investigate the culturally hidden experience of trying to conceive. In elegant, engaging prose, Isabel Davis explores the combination of myth, fantasy, science, and pseudo-science that the (un)reproductive body encounters in pursuit of a viable pregnancy. The book chronicles the trying-to-conceive lifecycle arc from sex education at school, through the desire to be a parent, into the specifics of trying and struggling to conceive. It also looks back at conception throughout history to open a new vista on what we live with today.
A central argument of Davis’s is that historical people lived with the unknown just like we do but were more explicitly able to acknowledge it. In an age of assistive reproductive technologies, the act of embracing uncertainty seems difficult. Although the topic of not conceiving is potentially painful, this is not a grim book; more than grief, it is motivated by curiosity, wonder, compassion, and even humor. With 108 full-color illustrations, Conceiving Histories is also a beautiful material object, an intentionally playful antidote and supplement to online search engines—the resort of so many embroiled in fertility challenges.
Inspired by the author’s own experiences, Conceiving Histories brings together history, personal memoir, and illustration to investigate the culturally hidden experience of trying to conceive. In elegant, engaging prose, Isabel Davis explores the combination of myth, fantasy, science, and pseudo-science that the (un)reproductive body encounters in pursuit of a viable pregnancy. The book chronicles the trying-to-conceive lifecycle arc from sex education at school, through the desire to be a parent, into the specifics of trying and struggling to conceive. It also looks back at conception throughout history to open a new vista on what we live with today.
A central argument of Davis’s is that historical people lived with the unknown just like we do but were more explicitly able to acknowledge it. In an age of assistive reproductive technologies, the act of embracing uncertainty seems difficult. Although the topic of not conceiving is potentially painful, this is not a grim book; more than grief, it is motivated by curiosity, wonder, compassion, and even humor. With 108 full-color illustrations, Conceiving Histories is also a beautiful material object, an intentionally playful antidote and supplement to online search engines—the resort of so many embroiled in fertility challenges.
