From Library Journal
This is an expanded version of lectures delivered last year at the University of Virginia. As always, the scholarship is formidable, the breadth of understanding and vision admirable. Readers of the earlier Plagues and Peoples ( LJ 9/15/76) will find much that is familiar in the theme and content of this book. McNeill argues that we have lived in "a single disease pool" since 1850, the result of increased world commerce. The balance between births and deaths that had endured for ten millenia has been fatally disrupted. Political disturbance, from imperialism to revolution, has followed demographic changes. "The global growth of population is the most fundamental and pervasive disturber of human society in modern times," asserts McNeill. He offers no palliative, but reminds us that we ignore demographic reality only to suffer the consequences. Balanced and insightful.
- David Keymer, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Utica
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- David Keymer, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Utica
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
