Common Sense About A Starving World (Common Sense Series)

Good. Inscription inside front cover by previous owner. Age spots to edge of pages throughout.

THE COMMON SENSE SERIES
The aim of this series is implicit in its title. Only three points need be added. The authors have been asked : first, to assume no special knowledge of the subject on the part of their readers; secondly, to write in a manner immediately intelligible to any man or woman—or, for that matter, to any boy or girl—of average education; and, thirdly, to be reasonably objective, while giving a considered view. A list of the first thirteen volumes faces the title-page within.
The present volume deals with what, next to possible nuclear destruction, is the most desperate problem facing mankind. By 1980, eighteen years from now, the world's population will be 4,000,000,000 inescapably. This pressure on the available food-supplies is fraught with danger for everyone, not only for those countries which we call "overpopulated" or "underdeveloped". The author argues that the world always has been "overpopulated", since the capacity of Man to produce food has depended (and still does) upon his ability to control his environment. His book answers both the "Doomsday" men and those who recklessly believe that population need not be inhibited, because (they claim) the resources of the earth will meet the increase whatever it may be. The figures are not what matter; it is the rate of increase and the time-factor involved.
RITCHIE CALDER is the new Professor of International Relations at Edinburgh University. His authority on this subject derives from his first-hand experience of the problem as consultant to the specialized agencies of the United Nations, and from his missions to the desert areas, the overpopulated regions of South-East Asia, and the potentially productive Arctic regions.