Reviewed by: Strengthening Bodies, Building a Nation: The Social History of Child Health and Welfare in Greece (1890–1940) by Vassiliki Theodorou and Despina Karakatsani Sevasti Trubeta Strengthening Bodies, Building a Nation: The Social History of Child Health and Welfare in Greece (1890–1940). By Vassiliki Theodorou and Despina Karakatsani. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2019. vi + 374 pp. Cloth $60. children's protection, health, and welfare have been the focus of diverse academic disciplines that examine their attention to social control through institutions such as schooling, boarding homes, health centers, child observation centers, or facilities for children and childcare. Medicine, the "queen" of academic disciplines in Michel Foucault's words, has contributed a great deal to establishing disciplinary and regulatory power and also to constituting modern social subjects. The notion of medicalization refers to medicine's power in designing society and—as power operates—to be internalized by social subjects, including the "child." In situating the medicalization of childhood as the focus of their book, Theodorou and Karakatsani address a topic that has attracted increasing scholarly interest in the last few decades. Their book also familiarizes the international audience with the peculiar case of Greece. The authors pursue the key aim of advancing an "understanding of the historical context of the medicalization of childhood attempted in Greece in the early twentieth century" (5) and, more specifically, during the period from the 1890s until 1940. A particular interest of this book is to explore increasing state control over children's health and the circumstances under which children's health and care emerged as a scientific issue. The analysis is based on the argument that children's health care in Greece contributed to "the institutionalized medicalization of child health on a mass scale, mainly through school" (6). In the introduction, the authors provide a historiographical overview of international scholarly debates about the medicalization of childhood and medicine as an institution of social control. They especially point to a trend in scholarship that explores children's health and the rise of childcare in the southeastern European countries as an integral part of national policies and the national community. Both the title of the book as well as the analysis demonstrate that the authors embrace this very approach and put at the heart of their analysis the significance of children's health and care for the national idea and community. Following a chronological approach, the book is divided into three main parts. The first covers the period from 1890 to 1929 (placing emphasis on the [End Page 172] last decade of the nineteenth century); it addresses the interweaving of medicine, medical ideas, and social policies concerning children in both Europe and Greece. The authors argue that in this period, public health policies facilitated the establishment of "school hygiene institutions to Greece" in 1920 (6). Along with detailing the ministries, the authors also consider the cooperation of a women's organization with state institutions in advancing institutional frames for children's health and care. The second part of the book covers the interwar period, which is framed by two key years and historical events: from 1922, when almost 1.5 million new people arrived to Greek state-territory (known as "refugees from Asia Minor"), to the establishment of the military dictatorship in 1936. The authors stress two developments that marked this period: the rise of professionals and experts in child welfare and the entanglement of scientists and practitioners. The focus of the third section addresses the youth and child policies of the dictatorship from 1936 up to Greece's entry in the Second World War (1940). In this part, the authors reflect on possible continuities and ruptures in child health care with previous governments. Given that the book is based on Greek historical events and developments, an appendix with short explanations about names, historical dates, and terms would have been helpful for the broader audience. A connoisseur of Greece may be familiar with (indeed, partially contested) terms such as "Asia Minor Disaster," "Asia Minor Refugees," or "4th August," but this may not necessarily be the case for a broader audience. In terms of bibliographical sources, this volume lags behind the present state of research...
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Apr 2, 2021
Susan Caplow 
Open Access