Concise History of World Population

About this book

Since its original publication in 1992, this book has become the standard history of world population. Its underlying purpose is to explain the links between nature, culture, and population and thereby to look at ways of preventing future environmental collapse and human catastrophe. Coverage of the changing patterns of population growth, and the effects of migrations, wars, disease, technology and culture, are addressed. For the third edition, the author has included new estimates and projections on world population to the year 2050, and updated the quantitative documentation and the bibliography. He has expanded the text on the geopolitical implications of demographic increase on different regions of the world and added sections on the effects of HIV on mortality and on sustainability of an extended life span. At the same time, the features that made previous editions attractive have been retained: the informative and accessible style, the reasoned treatment of issues crucial to the future of every species, and the contemporary recasting of theory.

Contents

List of Figures. List of Tables. Preface. 1. The Space and Strategy of Demographic Growth. 2. Demographic Growth: Between Choice and Constraint. 3. Land, Labor, and Population. 4. Toward Order and Efficiency: The Recent Demography of Europe and the Developed World. 5. The Populations of Poor Countries. 6. The Future. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index.

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Biography

Massimo Livi-Bacci is Professor of Demography at the University of Florence. From 1989 to 1993 he was President of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. He has published extensively on the history of population and on demography, and has taught or held research fellowships at universities all over the world, including the College de France, the Colegio de Mexico, Princeton University, University of California at Berkeley, and Brown University. In Italy he is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and of the Committee of Enquiry on poverty.