Stanley’s Dream: The Medical Expedition to Easter Island by Jacalyn Duffin (review)

of the theoretical stances of most current women historians writing about the Progressive period. The postmodern world, if that is where we are, exhibits an interest in gender, identity, power, diversity, race, and much more, but not stressing, as MacNamara does in the sections on feminism, conflict between men and women. Women in leadership positions at the turn of the twentieth century had barely begun an interest in gender, but organized for political and legal rights. MacNamara ends his book in despair: the success of the birth control movement has produced below-replacement fertility rates in the industrialized West, while developing nations have falling, but still higher birth rates. The same imbalance holds for liberals and conservatives. Democratic liberalism, he believes, will not survive. Starvation, forced migration, and war are inevitable, and indeed he can imagine no escape. It is plausible—look at the Proud Boys and their ilk. Still, cooperative schemes might prevail, food production may increase, birth rates might fall faster than imagined. Conversely, death rates may rise, life expectancy fall, epidemics spread, pollution go unaddressed. These are important issues.