Book excerpt: "Katherine Lynch's study of the French state's response to a crisis of working-class families illustrates a new sophistication in our understanding of the complex origins of social policy. She looks at middle-class reformers' formulation of social policy affecting illegitimacy, child abandonment, and child labor and examines the implementation of these policies in three major factory towns--Lille, Mulhouse, and Rouen--in the quarter century before the revolution of 1848. . . . This is a most valuable book that seeks to understand both the politics of reform and the ways in which reformist policies change in the process of implementation. It presents a sophisticated exploration of important issues."--Journal of Economic History