Review by Choice Review
Hardin's basic message in this book is that human population increase must stop; zero population growth will then allow for improvements in quality of life. Woven around this premise are chapters dealing with specific topics, e.g., cowboy economics versus spaceship ecology, exponential growth of population, the demographic transitions, carrying capacity, and birth control versus population control. The controversial text is written in a readable and engaging style, typical of Hardin's previous publications on the subject. Readers unfamiliar with the large literature on the impact of population growth will find this book highly interesting and thought provoking. Hardin has assembled the central ideas of many scholars and presented them clearly for the novice. However, experts in the fields of demography, economics, human ecology, and history will find little that is new here. Notes and references. General; undergraduate. T. E. Steahr; University of Connecticut
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Dust off those dog-eared classical economics textbooks, folks--T. R. Malthus rides again! Ecologist Hardin deftly demolishes the optimistic scenarios--from "escape to the stars" and nuclear power to "benign demographic transition"--by which some politicians, businesspeople, and aid officials seek to preserve "growth" in the face of limits imposed by the earth's carrying capacity. And he is surely correct that a "population taboo" is responsible for the fact that population control--a central element of the first Earth Day, in 1970--was largely ignored at the 1990 Earth Day, although global population grew 47 percent in the intervening decades. But some readers will disagree with Hardin's grimly pessimistic notion of human nature, which seems simply a more sophisticated version of Adam Smith's selfishness or the Bible's original sin. It is this philosophical conviction that powers the author's often vituperative attacks on "cosmopolitanism," multiculturalism, and aid programs, as well as Living within Limits' prescriptions for the world: "unity within each sovereignty; diversity among sovereignties," imposition of strict immigration controls by industrialized countries, and recognition that the misery generated by the Malthusian demostat is the negative feedback required to move nations beyond mere birth control to true population control. Hardin reappears as author of a foreword to Population Politics, in which Abernethy draws similar lessons based on different disciplines. Like Hardin, Abernethy debunks "benign demographic transition," the theoretical basis for aid programs that seek to reduce population growth in developing countries by improving living conditions. To the contrary, based on analysis of population patterns in Ireland, Indonesia, Cuba, China, Turkey, Egypt, and other countries, Abernethy asserts that motivation is essential to effective population control, and that the most powerful basis for such motivation is perception of limited resources. Her attack on liberal U.S. immigration policies is more detailed than Hardin's in its cri~tique of the destructive consequences of this "open door" for both U.S. citizens and those who remain behind in the countries immigrants leave. "All-inclusive replacement-level immigration--about 160,000 persons per year," she argues, "is the most that the United States can accommodate if we wish to pass on to our children the opportunities and freedoms which we have long enjoyed." One can agree with Hardin and Abernethy on the limits imposed by the carrying capacity of the earth without sharing their conviction that human nature itself is the most powerful obstacle to intelligent control of population. With apologies to William Shakespeare, the basic question remains: just what kind of piece of work is man? On this fundamental question, Hardin and Abernethy share a determinedly jaundiced view. ~--Mary Carroll
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
