Health, Hygiene and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945

Promitzer (history, U. of Graz), Trubeta (sociology, U. of the Aegean), and Turda (biomedicine, Oxford Brookes U.) trace the regional political, cultural, social and economic patterns which influenced the formation of public health policies in southeastern Europe to 1945, many of which conflated the health of the populace with the strength of the state, supporting an interventionist position. Contributions explore the effect of racism on public health in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bulgaria in the early 20th century; the practical difficulties and strategies involved with the institution of malaria, infant mortality, and tuberculosis policies in Greece and Bulgaria; and the accomplishments of physician Andrija Stampar in 1920s Yugoslavia. They also outline the uses of eugenics at various times from the late 19th to the mid 20th centuries, detailing systems such as marital restrictions and birth control via church sanctions and the reductions of unwanted minorities and the disabled in both liberal "positive eugenics" and fascist "negative eugenics" programs. Distributed by Books International. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Christian Promitzer is assistant professor at the Center for Southeast-European History at the Institute of History, University of Graz.
Sevasti Trubeta is assistant professor at the University of the Aegean, Department of Sociology (Mytiline) and affiliated with the Free University of Berlin.
Marius Turda is reader in 20th Century Central and Eastern European Biomedicine at Oxford Brookes University and founder of the Working Group on the History of Race and Eugenics (HRE).