This magnificent book takes up the controversial subject of infanticide in early modern Japan. Historians and demographers have long understood that infanticideknown euphemistically as mabiki or "thinning"-was quite common in the Tokugawa era, and that it was more widely practiced in some regions than in others. But they have not agreed on why. Was it the last resort of the desperate poor or the coldly rational strategy of the upwardly mobile? Through virtuosic statistical analysis of population registers and a careful reading of an array of primary sources, including pamphlets, petitions, votive tablets, pregnancy reports, and policy memos, Fabian Drixler addresses this question and many others. The result is an expansive argument that opens up new terrain in both population studies and Japanese history.Focusing on "eastern Japan," roughly northeast Kantō and southern Tō hoku, Drixler argues that infanticide was even more common than historians previously recognized. Before 1790, a combination of abortion and infanticide claimed more than four in every ten children. This "culture of infanticide" was not equally shared across space; some provinces, notably Echigo, and some villages remained holdouts. But in places where it held sway, this culture shaped the practices of both poor peasants and their wealthier neighbors. To the question of whether infanticide was the last resort of the poor or the cold calculation of the affluent, Drixler answers persuasively that it was both. Across most of the region, peasants shared a "fertility norm" in which couples raised only a few children. This preference emerged from both religious and material considerations. Peasants who were learning to venerate their ancestors and hoped for the same treatment from their descendants favored the stem family, which could perpetuate itself indefinitely. This form required meticulous stewardship of household resources and demanded investment in a single, promising heir. At the same time, new farming techniques required long-term planning and careful attention to quality. These preoccupations were reflected in the agricultural metaphors employed by peasants who turned the same logic on their newborns, weeding out those who-for reasons of sex, timing, or physical appearance-were deemed unpromising.Mabiki would be a major contribution to the field if even if it stopped at this point. But in a striking illustration of the interplay of discourse and demography, Drixler shows that the demography and culture of eastern Japan shifted decisively after the 1790s, as local elites and samurai officials concerned about depopulation began to inveigh against infanticide. Pamphleteers redrew the boundaries of humanity to include newborns and exclude infanticidal mothers. Where peasants had equated large families with animalistic behavior, pamphleteers argued that infanticidal parents were in fact inferior to animals because they showed less concern for their offspring than dogs, crows, or monkeys. Votive tablets depicted demonic mothers who crushed their ...