At the end of each day, the world has over 225,000 more mouths to feed than it had the day before; at the end of every week, 1.5 million more; at the close of each year, an additional 80 million plus. In the world's poorest countries, where population growth is most rapid,the lives of hundreds of millions of people are constantly plagued by hunger and by diseases aggravated by malnutrition. Humankind,which numbered 4.5 billion in the 1980s, is now well over 6 billion and is caught in an ambush of its own making. Economists call it the "Malthusian trap," after the man--Thomas Robert Malthus--who, in his famous essay of 1798, most forcefully stated our grim biological predicament: population growth tends to outstrip the supply of food.
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While millions face hunger, malnutrition, and starvation, the world’s population is increasing by over 225,000 people per day, 80 million per year. In many countries, supplies of food and water are inadequate to support the population, so the world falls deeper and deeper into what economists call the “Malthusian trap,” named for the writer whose work, more than any other, brought attention to the population dilemma. Philip Appleman’s comprehensive introduction to Thomas Robert Malthus’ seminal 1798 work traces the evolution of Malthus’ idea and its validity through following generations.
The text is accompanied by explanatory annotations and excerpts from the revised edition (1803). Key eighteenth-century influences on Malthus are reprinted, including one by Benjamin Franklin.
Nine major assessments from the nineteenth century are reprinted, including—new to the Second Edition—those of Frances Pace and Harriet Martineau.
Contemporary commentary ranges widely through many schools of thought, from Lester R. Brown, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, and Garrett Hardin to Julian Simon and Pope Paul VI. All but one of the twenty-four selections are new to the Second Edition.
A Selected Readings list and Index are included.
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction
Part I. Influences on Malthus
David Hume—Of the Populousness of Antient Nations (1752)
Robert Wallace—A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind in Antient and Modern Times (1753)
Benjamin Franklin—Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1755)
Adam Smith—An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
Condorcet—The Future Progress of the Human Mind (1795)
William Godwin—Of Avarice and Profusion (1797)
Part II. Selections from Malthus’s Work
An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)
An Essay on the Principle of Population: From the Revised Edition (1803--)
Part III. Nineteenth-Century Comment
William Godwin—Of Population (1820)
Francis Place—Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population (1822)
Nassau W. Senior—Two Lectures on Population (1829)
Harriet Martineau—Illustrations of Political Economy (1832)
Friedrich Engels—Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)
John Stuart Mill—Principles of Political Economy (1848)
Charles Darwin—The Origin of Species (1859)
Karl Marx—Capital (1867)
George Bernard Shaw—Fabian Essays (1889)
Part IV. Malthus in the Twenty-First Century
A. POPULATION GROWTH IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: A NEW LOOK AT MALTHUS
The United Nations Population Fund—Footprints and Milestones: Population and Environmental Change (2001)
Lester R. Brown—The Population Challenge (1999)
William R. Catton, Jr.—Overshoot (1984)
B. POPULATION AND FOOD SUPPLIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Gary Gardner—Shrinking Fields (1996)
Lester R. Brown—Eradicating Hunger: A Growing Challenge (2001)
C. POPULATION AND WATER SUPPLIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Peter H. Gleick—The World’s Water (2000)
Sandra Postel—Last Oasis (1997)
D. POPULATION AND ENGERY SUPPLIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
David Pimental and Marcia Pimental—Food, Energy, and Society (1996)
E. POPULATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich—How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future (1996)
F. POPULATION AND SOCIAL DYMANICS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Bingham Kennedy, Jr.—Environmental Scarcity and the Outbreak of Conflict (2001)
Lester R. Brown—The Emergence of Demographic Fatigue (1999)
G. SOME CONTEMPORARY CRITICS OF MALTHUSIANISM
Francis Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset—Beyond the Myth of Hunger (1998)
Eric B. Ross—The Malthus Factor (1998)
Julian L. Simon—The Ultimate Resource (1996)
Pope Paul VI—Human Vitae (1968)
H. RETHINKING ENDLESS POPULATION GROWTH
Joel E. Cohen—How Many People Can the Earth Support? (1995)
Garrett Hardin—Nobody Ever Dies of Overpopulation (1993)
Rodolfo A. Bulatao—The Value of Family Planning Programs in Developing Countries (1998)
Mark W. Nowak—Why Population Policy Matters to America (1998)
J. Kenneth Smail—Remembering Malthus: A Preliminary Argument for a Significant Reduction in Gl bal Human Numbers (2002)
Robert Engelman, Brian Halweil, and Danielle Nierenbert—Rethinking Population, Improving Lives (2002)
I. THREE SIGNIFICANT POSTSCRIPTS
World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity (1993)
Statement on Population Stabilization by World Leaders (1985/1995)
Priority Statement on Population (1991)
Selected Readings
Index
