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Podcast: New Books in Women's History
Episode: Anna Bonnell Freidin, "Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Description: Across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, anxieties about childbirth tied individuals to one another, to the highest levels of imperial politics, even to the movements of the stars. Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome (Princeton UP, 2024) sheds critical light on the diverse ways pregnancy and childbirth were understood, experienced, and managed in ancient Rome during the first three centuries of the Common Era.In this beautifully written book, Anna Bonnell Freidin asks how inhabitants of the Roman Empire—especially women and girls—understood their bodies and constructed communities of care t...