Gretchen Daily

The authors are concerned about overpopulation, and this book is a look at the problem of whether the agriculture industry can keep up with the exploding populations around the world. Overall, it's a decent look at the problem, though some of the things they were optimistic about in the 1990s have either failed to work out or have not been pursued in the decade since, partially because of political and social resistance to the idea that there could possibly be too many people. The main downside is that the authors, like many others, seem to buy into the idea of the noble savage, and seem to think that all progress has been negative, reducing all who do not farm to the role of "stealing" food. This is, I think, quite a bit too simplistic, and renders all human activity outside of food gathering suspect and worthless. Other than that, the book is well written and frank, and I encourage peopel who are interested in the issue to consider it, with the awareness that some of the information is now out of date; since the issues remain the same, and only the statistics have changed, that probably isn't too serious a downside.… (mehr)