Vol. 14 No. 7 (July 2004), pp.546-547

FAMILIES BY LAW: AN ADOPTION READER, by Naomi Cahn and Joan Heifetz Hollinger (eds.). New York: New York University Press, 2004. 282pp. Cloth US$ 70.00.  ISBN: 0814715893.  Paperback. US$ 24. ISBN: 0814715907.

Reviewed by Francis Regan, Legal Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.  Email: Francis.Regan@flinders.edu.au

Edited collections of readings are sometimes unfairly criticised for their lack of theoretical or conceptual coherence.  This is often an unfair criticism, because by their nature edited volumes can be designed to be eclectic. They can, for example, reflect the different authors’ research and theoretical standpoints, or they can introduce a new field of research in one volume.  Indeed, particularly in new fields of research, edited volumes can combine a rich diversity of material that a monograph produced by one or a small group of authors is unable to do.  To put it another way, an edited collection can be a valuable resource precisely because it lacks the coherence of a single or multi-author volume.  Of course this does not mean that edited volumes are necessarily worthwhile per se but it does suggest that the need to consider the role and purpose of edited collections in their own right.

The present volume is an example where there is a strong argument in favour of the edited collection approach.  The purpose of this collection is to draw upon a range of disciplines to analyse and critique the law and policy of adoption.  The focus is primarily upon materials from the USA.  The book is intended to allow and foster study of adoption as a field of study in its own right rather than a sub-field of, for example, family law, history or social work.  While I am convinced of the book’s role and purpose as an edited collection, I have a number of other quibbles with the editors’ choice of materials and their approach to presenting them, as I explain below.

The contents of FAMILIES BY LAW reflect a wonderfully broad panorama of the field of adoption studies.  Each of the eight sections begins with a short readable introduction to the contributions that are grouped in order to examine different aspects of adoption.  It is worth summarising the sections here in order to demonstrate the breadth of coverage.  The sections examine in turn the history of adoption in the USA, the legal and psychological requirements and consequences, foster care and informal adoption, confidentiality issues, “open adoption” where continuing contact occurs, the race and other frontiers of adoption, feminist perspectives on adoption, and a final section examining related issues such as adoption and assisted reproduction.  It is, overall, a comprehensive introduction to most of the issues relating to adoption.  I would, for example, have no qualms in recommending that students wanting to initiate adoption research consult this book to expose them to the range of interrelated issues in this field.

The editors’ approach to selecting material for the volume was, however, [*547] unusual and sometimes frustrating.  Instead of including a range of long and short contributions, they included a large number of mostly extracts from articles and legislation.  The result is that there are in total 71 contributions averaging about four and one-half pages each.  For some readers it will result in a series of refreshingly brief insights into a particular aspect of adoption law and policy.  For other readers this will be frustrating because depth has been sacrificed to ensure breadth.  The reader’s frustration level might well rise further upon noticing the absence of a detailed bibliography.  That is, apart from the Introduction, the book surprisingly does not contain a list of the sources referred to in the contributions.  Instead, there is a curious and worrisome blurring of the lines between print and online text.  If “further reading” is desired, the interested reader is referred to the New York University Press web site.  It raises the question of whether publishers will one day force us to pay for bibliographies in academic texts.  There is, however, a helpful index.

While not wanting to fall into the trap of suggesting what this book could have been, I think there are two noticeable omissions.  First, it is an almost exclusively USA collection.  This is a great strength.  The coverage of the historical and contemporary USA material is excellent and the conscious decision to select materials from many disciplines provides a range of relevant contexts from which to consider adoption.  But that emphasis is also a weakness, because the reader learns almost nothing about adoption law and policy in other societies.  I am not suggesting inclusion of vast amounts of material from other societies because that would make a large book even larger.  Instead it is a question of whether the introductions to each section could have linked the USA materials to the general patterns and trends in international developments.  In general, policy and law are to some extent borrowed from other societies.  But was this the case with the USA in adoption law and policy?  Or was the USA unique in its approach?  If so, why was the USA so different?  It is not possible to answer such questions after reading this collection. The lack of a bibliography simply compounds this problem.

Second, I would like to have seen more examination of research about the consequences of adoption.  Evidence is discussed that demonstrates that on many measures adopted children in general fare as well as other children.  But is there other relevant evaluative research to consider?  For example, what are the consequences of adoption for the birth mother, her family, the adopted child’s parents, and especially for the adopted child?

Finally the likely market for this collection reflects the present youthful state of adoption studies—pun intended.  I am sure many USA university law libraries will buy it, and it will be a valuable introductory source material in the emerging field of adoption studies.  But it is unlikely that law schools or other disciplines will prescribe it as a text for groups of students because of the compromise made between breadth and depth.  Hopefully, however, it will prompt others to produce additional edited collections that take up from where this volume left off. 

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Copyright 2004 by the author, Francis Regan.