The notion that maternal care and love will determine a childOCOs emotional well-being and future personality has become ubiquitous. In countless stories and movies we find that the problems of the protagonistsOCoanything from the fear of romantic commitment to serial killingOCostem from their troubled relationships with their mothers during childhood. How did we come to hold these views about the determinant power of mother love over an individualOCOs emotional development? And what does this vision of mother love entail for children and mothers?aaaaaaaaaaaIn "The Nature and Nurture of Love," Marga Vicedo examines scientific views about childrenOCOs emotional needs and mother love from World War II until the 1970s, paying particular attention to John BowlbyOCOs ethological theory of attachment behavior. Vicedo tracks the development of BowlbyOCOs work as well as the interdisciplinary research that he used to support his theory, including Konrad LorenzOCOs studies of imprinting in geese, Harry HarlowOCOs experiments with monkeys, and Mary AinsworthOCOs observations of children and mothers in Uganda and the United States. VicedoOCOs historical analysis reveals that important psychoanalysts and animal researchers opposed the project of turning emotions into biological instincts. Despite those criticisms, she argues that attachment theory was paramount in turning mother love into a biological need. This shift introduced a new justification for the prescriptive role of biology in human affairs and had profoundOCoand negativeOCoconsequences for mothers and for the valuation of mother love.