Jonathan Eig introduces the four people behind the invention of the pill — the revolutionary birth control that changed the sexual landscape.

In the modern Western world, it can be easy to take birth control for granted. But it wasn't always as readily available as it is today.

In his October 2014 book, The Birth of the Pill, American journalist Jonathan Eig delves into the history of the contraceptive pill and the four activists who brought it into existence.

Charting the pill's political origins in women's emancipation and suffrage groups and its development in a tiny, underfunded research center, Eig provides valuable context to the birth control landscape, which is still somewhat controversial today.