Description
Armstrong insightfully mines historical, interview, medical and demographic data to create a virtual tour de force presentation. The book is sure to create controversy around current pregnancy, fetal, and alcohol policies and be a benchmark in alcohol and reproduction research for a long time. -- Peter Conrad, Brandeis University An extraordinarily lucid and well-balanced analysis. Using the tools of history, epidemiology, and sociology, Armstrong has made the social construction of fetal alcohol syndrome a site for illuminating research-and not a one-dimensional polemical slogan. This accessible book should be of interest to anyone interested in the formation and implementation of social policy-as well as historians of medicine and gender. -- Charles E. Rosenberg, Harvard University
About the Author
Elizabeth M. Armstrong is an assistant professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.
Reviews
Easy and interesting to read from a historical as well as from a sociological perspective. Doody's Book Review Service In this well-written book, Elizabeth Armstrong provides an in-depth analysis of fetal alcohol syndrome as a social problem. -- Virginia Chang American Journal of Sociology 2005 A welcome and long overdue critique of the knowledge production in the United States surrounding alcohol use by pregnant women and the diagnostic category of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Social History 2004 Excellent... FAS, because it is seen as preventable, allows society to blame pregnant women who transgress agreed-upon norms rather than seek solutions to the structural problems that lead to adverse birth outcomes and chronic alcohol consumption in the first place. -- Rebecca Tiger Theoretical Criminology 2006 An interesting and informative exploration of the construction of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) as a major social problem within the US. It combines an historical overview, epidemiological data, and qualitative interviewing to show clearly how moral values affect medical and policy pronouncements. -- Pam Lowe Sociology of Health and Illness 2006 The book succeeds as a social history of the medicalization of FAS. -- Constance Weisner, DrPH, MSW JAMA 2005 Armstrong fully explores how our propensity to apply medical labels to social phenomena is worked out within a particular cultural context. -- Mairead Moloney Social Forces A well-researched, highly readable, and convincing example of the ways in which modern medicine continues to create myths, stigmatize the poor and pathologize gender. -- Hera Cook Social History of Medicine A rich and highly readable descriptive account of the gendered politics of moral entrepreneurship in American health research and policy regarding FAS. -- Erica Prussing Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2004 Armstrong draws attention to some important questions about our perceptions of responsibility for alcohol related harm sustained during pregnancy... I hope that her book will lead to a healthy debate and a more objective ethical, medical and scientific approach to this field in the future. -- C. C. H. Cook Addiction 2004 An important book that offers a welcome critique of FAS as a social construct. -- Claudia Malacrida Health 2005 There is much to admire in Armstrong's account: her clever deconstruction of the advocates' invented history of FAS, her sure-handed discussion of the politics of reproduction, and her often-fascinating interview material. -- David T. Courtwright Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 2004
Book Information
ISBN 9780801891083
Author Elizabeth M. Armstrong
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press