Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsLots of good facts and ideas, but I'm not buying the whole package
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2022
The author has brought together a lot of diverse information about what helps populations (human or otherwise) survive times of stress. I have definitely learned some new things, and been given new ways of looking at others.
Like some political platforms, this is a book where I find myself nodding in agreement with four things in a row, and then totally rejecting the fifth. That's not all bad, if you think of it as food for thought.
She tends to assume that we can be satisfied with being packed into densely-packed habitats, which doesn't sound very inviting to me. I don't see our ability to produce large populations as a plus, as the author suggests early on. Over-use of resources is a big part of what has us in trouble today. Our use of industrial technology is factor which has done a lot of harm, but which can also be improved to do some good. On the other hand, more people always means more resources used, more CO2 released, and less space for the forests and crop lands we benefit from. There needs to be more attention here to how large a population can reasonably be sustained, whether on today's Earth or in some future space-based solution.
The book gives some hope that the next great extinction (whether it has already started or not) won't kill us all off, but it certainly isn't a blueprint for making that happen. It is probably worth a read.