Joel F. Harrington is professor of history and associate provost for global strategy at Vanderbilt University. His books include Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany.

"Joel F. Harrington breaks new ground with this work.... The Unwanted Child mounts a rich, successful challenge to top-down historical approaches to the subject." (Choice) "In his fascinating study, Joel F. Harrington acquaints the reader with the realities of child abandonment and infanticide and the challenges that early modern social distortions, triggered by wars, economic crisis, and climate change, to name but a few, held for poor families.... Essential for students as well as for researchers." (Journal of Social History)"