Review by Choice Review
Abernethy focuses exclusively on the role played by population growth in the degradation of the environment and the impoverishment of people. Rapid population growth in the Third World, she maintains, has come about through increases in the birth rate, disturbing a historic equilibrium with relatively low death rates that had produced constant or only very slowly growing populations. Although many will disagree with this argument and will find the evidence Abernethy marshals in support of it not persuasive, few will disagree that rapid population growth in the Third World is problematic in many ways. According to the author, high fertility in developing countries has been encouraged, mostly inadvertently, by policies of developed countries. The US population also continues to grow substantially as a result of increased immigration, both legal and illegal, and of the high fertility of immigrants. The solutions Abernethy offers--foreign aid focusing on "micro-loans" to peasants and grass-roots organizations instead of big projects, and much lower legal immigration to the US with much greater attention to the integrity of US borders--are sensible, given her analysis. The effectiveness of such solutions are questionable, however; the author has failed to take a broader perspective and to discuss other central causes of environmental abuse and impoverishment at home and abroad, most notable the behavior of transnational corporations. Some acknowledgement of the contributions of immigrants to US society would have muted the book's unfortunate xenophobic tone. General; undergraduate; graduate; faculty. K. Hadden; University of Connecticut
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
