Unnatural Selection Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

"Ms. Hvistendahl is a first-rate reporter and has filled Unnatural Selectionwith gripping details.... There is so much to recommend." -- Wall Street Journal "An important ... bracing work of investigative reporting ... As news of these (gender) imbalances has spread, many have blamed ancient preferences: India's patriarchal social systems, for instance, or Chinese beliefs that only boys provide for ageing parents. Hvistendahl's research puts the lie to these lazy claims." -- Financial Times "Massively well-documented.... A disturbing, engrossing book." -- Washington Post "It might be the most important book written about women in years." -- Slate

Mara Hvistendahl's writing has appeared in Harper's, the New Republic, Scientific American, the Financial Times magazine, Popular Science, Foreign Policy, and the Los Angeles Times. A correspondent for the Chronicle of Higher Education and former contributing editor at Seed magazine, Mara has won an Education Writers Association award and been nominated for the Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award. She first lived in Asia over a decade ago, when her studies took her to Beijing. She has spent half of the years since then in China, a base from which she reported extensively from around the continent.