Since the rise of artificial formula, we have turned a biological process into a never-ending controversy: A mother breastfeeding her three-year-old son on the cover of Time magazine sets off a firestorm. Facebook takes down photos of women nursing, citing the content as "offensive." The pope weighs in, urging mothers to nurse their children in church or elsewhere "without thinking twice."

So how did we get here? What are the consequences of surrendering eons of human evolution for a mode of feeding so alien? Growing up, journalist Jennifer Grayson thought nothing of the fact that she was bottle-fed. But when she became a mother, Grayson considered the impact of missing out on this profound connection. Her book is a worldwide search for answers about the first, most fundamental experience of newborn life.

From biblical times to eighteenth-century France, from modern-day Mongolia to inner-city Los Angeles--Unlatched uncovers astonishing cultural, corporate, political, and technological factors at the heart of our contemporary breastfeeding disconnection.