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the threshold to renew the population (around 2.1 children per woman), and in many Member states below 1.5 children per woman. If the total working age population (15– Member states below 1.5 children per woman. If the total working age population (15– H i s t o r y o f M e d i c i n e H i s t o r y o f M e d i c i n e C E U P r e s s S t u d i e s i n t h e C E U P r e s s S t u d i e s i n t h e “This is a ground-breaking book. The social history of Bulgaria is a rare commodity; even in Bulgaria itself it is only now beginning to escape from the neglect to which the communist authorities condemned it. Svetla Baloutzova has worked extensively in the Bulgarian archives and has unearthed fascinating material on the question of family legislation in Bulgaria in the period between the end of the First and the beginning of the Second World War. The author skillfully shows how legislation on mothers, children and eugenics was inextricably interwoven with the pro-natalist policies of the governments of the inter-war period. She also casts illuminating light on a whole series of other issues, including child mortality, education, attitudes towards women, demography, and the workings of the Bulgarian parliamentary system. She also illustrates previously neglected aspects of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union’s policy and ideology. This book will be of enormous value to students of Bulgarian history, but it will also be welcomed by a much wider range of scholars who are concerned with family questions, with women’s history , and social developments in general.” Richard Crampton, Professor of East European History and Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford “This book is the product of an extraordinary research project carried out by an indefatigable explorer. Dr Baloutzova has uncovered a vast historical territory hidden in the dark continent of Bulgaria’s interwar history. It was politically inconvenient to those placed in power after 1944 that there had previously been maternal and child health care services, family allowances, government figures dedicated to promoting the people’s health and, perhaps most worrying of all, campaigns by citizens asserting their demands in interwar Bulgaria. Now Dr Baloutzova’s meticulously researched new book restores to Bulgarian citizens this central story of their own debates and struggles in the era before communist rule.” Simon Szreter, Professor of History and Public Policy and Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge In 2005, the European Commission published the Green Paper Confronting Demographic Change: A New Solidarity between the Generations, which addressed the latest developments in Europe’s demographic situation, and, in particular, outlined the challenges of a new demographic “crisis.” The Paper implied a positive correlation between economic performance and population growth, placed in the context of the combination of reduction in birth numbers, ageing, and the dwindling potentials for immigration . The Green Paper noted that the fertility rate within the EU had fallen below the threshold to renew the population (around 2.1 children per woman), and in many the threshold to renew the population (around 2.1 children per woman), and in many Member states below 1.5 children per woman. If the total working age population (15– ...