Population Policy in the Age of Fascism: Observations on Recent Literature

Abstract

Until about 15 years ago practically the only book-length English-language source of information on population policy in Western between World War I and World War II was David Glasss book Population Policies and Movements in Europe published in 1940. Now however a series of monographs has begun to fill the gap partly thanks to a better understanding of European historical demography and partly due to the interest in the pre-World War II practice of eugenics. Scholarship on eugenics has a longer history than that on population policy per se with the greatest scrutiny directed to Germany and the Anglo-American world. The recently produced literature on population policy between the wars is reviewed. However despite this new flood of commentary the issue of population and policy is far from exhausted. Work on other nondemocratic contexts such as Francos Spain would also be a welcome addition to the current body of related literature.