The issues for which Katharine Dexter McCormick (1874-1967) fought are as important today as they were seventy-five years ago: birth control, sex education, abortion, equal pay for equal work, and freedom from sexual harassment. She was a driving force in the battle for the women's vote, the formation of the Women's League of Voters, the creation of Planned Parenthood, and the development of the birth control pill. McCormick stepped forward when others were afraid to act, and her unflagging fidelity to the cause made possible the social, political, and scientific achievements that today mark the difference between misery and opportunity for millions of women. Although she was born into a world of privilege with many intellectual talents, McCormick's life was not without its significant challenges. Many of the issues to which she devoted her life remain controversial and are still under attack by their opponents. Due to her modesty, McCormick neither sought nor received public accolades during her lifetime. Nonetheless, her long-time crusades and achievements revolutionized the role of women, not only in America, but throughout the world. Scientist, humanitarian, and lifelong champion of women's rights, her determination and commitment provide a pattern to inspire women today and tomorrow.

A Chicago Tribune "Best Books of 2014" • A Slate "Best Books 2014: Staff Picks" • A St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Best Books of 2014" The fascinating story of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. We know it simply as "the pill," yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic; the visionary scientist Gregory Pincus, who was dismissed by Harvard in the 1930s as a result of his experimentation with in vitro fertilization but who, after he was approached by Sanger and McCormick, grew obsessed with the idea of inventing a drug that could stop ovulation; and the telegenic John Rock, a Catholic doctor from Boston who battled his own church to become an enormously effective advocate in the effort to win public approval for the drug that would be marketed by Searle as Enovid. Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.

This extraordinary love story, based on historical characters and written with Boyle's customary brilliance and wit, follows the lives of two scarred creatures living in a magical age. It is the turn of the century. Stanley McCormick, the twenty-nine-year-old heir to the great Reaper fortune, meets and marries Katherine Dexter, a woman of 'power, beauty, wealth and prestige'. Two years later, Stanley falls victim to a tormenting sexual mania and schizophrenia, and is imprisoned in the massive forbidding mansion known as Riven Rock. He spends the next two decades under the control of a succession of psychiatrists, all of whom forbid any contact with women. Yet Katherine Dexter, now famous as a champion for women's suffrage and Planned Parenthood, remains strong in her belief that someday her husband will return to her whole. Based on a true story of love, madness and sexuality this is a tragic book with enormous depth and scope. Set in America at the turn of the century, it is full of fascinating historical detail.

When Margaret Sanger returned to Europe in 1920, World War I had altered the social landscape as dramatically as it had the map of Europe. Population concerns, sexuality, venereal disease, and contraceptive use had entered public discussion, and Sanger's birth control message found receptive audiences around the world. This volume focuses on Sanger from her groundbreaking overseas advocacy during the interwar years through her postwar role in creating the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The documents reconstruct Sanger's dramatic birth control advocacy tours through early 1920s Germany, Japan, and China in the midst of significant government and religious opposition to her ideas. They also trace her tireless efforts to build a global movement through international conferences and tours. Letters, journal entries, writings, and other records reveal Sanger's contentious dealings with other activists, her correspondence with the likes of Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sanger's own dramatic evolution from gritty grassroots activist to postwar power broker and diplomat.

The new seventh edition reflects advances in the understanding of the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of psychiatric disorders as well as the positive, transformational change that has taken place in the field of psychiatry.