“Alexandra Halkias probes the tension between the male-centered, hegemonic assumptions of European nationalism and the representation of the nation as a female body (and the female body as a national property) with an adroit irony leavened by perceptive compassion. At the heart of the paradox of modern Greece, cast as both the despised backwater and the glorious cradle of ‘the West,’ she incisively dissects a concomitant paradox: insistent calls to fill the cradle coexist with a remarkably high rate of abortion. This is politically forthright cultural analysis grounded in intimate and yet also wide-ranging observation.”-Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University “The question of Greek women’s ready use of abortion and their ‘failure’ to use other methods of birth control is one that for some time has intrigued anthropologists. Alexandra Halkias offers provocative arguments regarding the ‘naturalness’ of abortion and the relationship between sexuality and national identity.”-Jill Dubisch, author of <i>In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender, and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine</i>