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Gunnar Broberg and Nils Roll-Hansen, eds. Eugenics and the Welfare State: Sterilization Policy in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. 2nd ed. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2005. xviii + 294 pp. Tables. $24.95 (paperbound, 0-87013-758-1).
The Scandinavian welfare state is often glorified as an ideal model of social integration and political stability. Yet lurking behind this success story are less-pleasant achievements-none more ghastly than the sterilization of some 63,000 Swedes between 1935 and 1975. Similar policies were in place in other Scandinavian countries: Denmark introduced a sterilization law in 1929, Norway did the same in 1934, and Sweden and Finland in 1935. It is no surprise, therefore, that the subject has attracted considerable attention, from the academic community and the public alike. Appropriately, in 1996 Gunnar Broberg and Nils Roll-Hansen edited a volume dealing with sterilization policies in the Scandinavian countries, thus offering scholarly treatment of these contentious issues. That volume has now been reissued.
Starting in the late nineteenth century, sterilization was seen as a viable method of social and biological betterment. Particular historical conditions might explain why such a method found supporters in, for example,...