A Concise History Of World Population, By Massimo Livi-Bacci

A Concise History of World Population was written by the professor Massimo Livi-Bacci. Since its first publication in 1992, this book has established as the standard history of world population. The book covers a wide range of topics including population growth, migration, war, disease and climate change. According to the author, the core purpose of its work is “to encourage humanity’s search for ways to prevent future demographic catastrophes brought by environmental or human agency” Undoubtedly, reading this book is necessary to understand the past, present and future of the human species.
The book is divided in seven chapters, each one dedicated to explain different issues regarding the history of population. In the following lines, I will
An essential characteristic of human species is that it grows slowly in time, but this growth has not been constant through history. As we know, population grows if more people are born than die. Thus, reproduction and fertility play a major role in the increase or decline of the population. In turn, fertility is mainly determined by the duration of postpartum anovulatory period and the age of marriage, which are both cultural components. This has important implications since it means that the human species is able to control fertility and thus the growth of population.
The second chapter provides a theoretical picture of how demographic growth takes place. According to the author, this growth is determined by two systems of forces: constraint and choice. The forces of constraint are those that impose limits to demographic growth such as climate, disease, land, energy, food and space. These forces are interrelated between them and change very
However, developing countries are still undergoing the initial phase. The demographic transition has several phases. Initially, mortality and fertility are very high and growth is slow. Then, there is a decrease in mortality, which causes high levels of growth. Fertility declines in order to adjust to the low mortality until they reach a new equilibrium. In equilibrium, morality and fertility are low and growth is slow.
The fifth chapter compares the transition of the less-developed countries to that of European countries. In the poor countries, the transition just began in 1950 and since then population has grown at a huge pace. The reason for this high growth is that medical knowledge transferred from the developed world caused morality to drop dramatically. However, fertility remains high as it depends on cultural factors that change very slowly.
In the last chapter, Livi-Bacci attempts to predict how population will evolve in the future. Demographers assert that by 2025 world population will reach 8 billion. This increasingly faster population growth worries some people, while others do not consider it as a threat. Livi-Bacci does not support any of these extreme positions, but argues that the future of population will depend on the choices that societies make while trying to adapt to the constraints imposed by