Demands of expanding populations and development planning : clean air, safe water, fertile soils /

It is not easy to determine the intended audience or utility of this book. Siegel (emer., geochemistry, George Washington Univ.) mentions "demographers [and] development planners." As the title implies, the work covers a vast area of extremely complex questions that are variously (but often poorly) understood. These issues are subject to hard questions of values, economics, and public policy about which both sound and highly politicized arguments have been, and will continue to be, made. The author has attempted to organize a discussion of population, natural resources, pollution and other environmental stresses, and economic development into some 250 topic headings covering no more than 220 pages of actual content (an average of more than one entry per page and nearly twice as many entries as in the very sparse index). Most of the index entries offer only one page reference. Readers hoping for more than a superficial read-through will have to resort to the rather complete bibliography for details. The volume would have benefited from better editing to correct awkward syntax and occasional grammatical errors. Summing Up: Not recommended. T. R. Blackburn formerly, American Chemical Society