The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus: Rereading the Principle of Population [Hardcover]

The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthusis a sweeping global and intellectual history that radically recasts our understanding of Malthus'sEssay on the Principle of Population, the most famous book on population ever written or ever likely to be. Malthus'sEssayis also persistently misunderstood. First published anonymously in 1798, theEssaysystematically argues that population growth tends to outpace its means of subsistence unless kept in check by factors such as disease, famine, or war, or else by lowering the birth rate through such means as sexual abstinence.

Challenging the widely held notion that Malthus'sEssaywas a product of the British and European context in which it was written, Alison Bashford and Joyce Chaplin demonstrate that it was the new world, as well as the old, that fundamentally shaped Malthus's ideas. They explore what the Atlantic and Pacific new worldsfrom the Americas and the Caribbean to New Zealand and Tahitimeant to Malthus, and how he treated them in hisEssay. Bashford and Chaplin reveal how Malthus, long vilified as the scourge of the English poor, drew from his principle of population to conclude that the extermination of native populations by European settlers was unjust.

Elegantly written and forcefully argued,The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthusrelocates Malthus'sEssayfrom the British economic and social context that has dominated its reputation to the colonial and global history that inspired its genesis.

Alison Bashfordis the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College. Her books includeGlobal Population: History, Geopolitics, and Life on Earth.Joyce E. Chaplinis the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University. Her books includeThe First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius. In their importanl1