At least five scientists have been proclaimed "the father of the Pill." We learn here that the credit for its conception belongs to two women who "stand by themselves as the indisputable mothers of the Pill." One of them, Margaret Sanger, was already famous - to many, notorious. The other, Katharine McCormick, didn't even rate an obituary in the nation's leading newspapers.

Here is a spellbinding tale of visions and blindness, testing and trials, setbacks and triumphs; of quirky scientists who turned to deciphering nature, and drug companies who turned away.

It takes us into the hushed halls of the Vatican, where celibates gingerly stepped around the Pill, pondering what it was, how it worked, and what it meant - until they came to the verge of approving it; and from there to the raucous explosion in college dorms of "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" - and some surprising conclusions about the supposed causes of the sexual revolution.