'Morland predicts the future of humanity in 10 illuminating statistics (could the Japanese and Italians now go the way of the dodo?) and looks back to how ebbs and flows of population have shaped history, such as the Soviet Union's plummeting birth rate in the 1960s, which hastened the end of the Cold War.' - The Daily Telegraph 'The Best Books for Summer 2022'
The great forces of population change - the balance of births, deaths and migrations - have made the world what it is today. They have determined which countries are superpowers and which languish in relative obscurity, which economies top the international league tables and which are at best also-rans.
The same forces that have shaped our past and present are shaping our future. Illustrating this through ten illuminating indicators, from the fertility rate in Singapore (one) to the median age in Catalonia (forty-three), Paul Morland shows how demography is both a powerful and an under-appreciated lens through which to view the global transformations that are currently underway.
Tomorrow's People ranges from the countries of West Africa where the tendency towards large families is combining with falling infant mortality to create the greatest population explosion ever witnessed, to the countries of East Asia and Southern Europe where generations of low birth-rate and rising life expectancy are creating the oldest populations in history. Morland explores the geographical movements of peoples that are already under way - portents for still larger migrations ahead - which are radically changing the cultural, ethnic and religious composition of many societies across the globe, and in their turn creating political reaction that can be observed from Brexit to the rise of Donald Trump. Finally, he looks at the two underlying motors of change - remarkable rises in levels of education and burgeoning food production - which have made all these epochal developments possible.
Tomorrow's People provides a fascinating, illuminating and thought-provoking tour of an emerging new world. Nobody who wants to understand that world should be without it.
'Morland predicts the future of humanity in 10 illuminating statistics (could the Japanese and Italians now go the way of the dodo?) and looks back to how ebbs and flows of population have shaped history, such as the Soviet Union's plummeting birth rate in the 1960s, which hastened the end of the Cold War.' - The Daily Telegraph 'The Best Books for Summer 2022'
The great forces of population change - the balance of births, deaths and migrations - have made the world what it is today. They have determined which countries are superpowers and which languish in relative obscurity, which economies top the international league tables and which are at best also-rans.
The same forces that have shaped our past and present are shaping our future. Illustrating this through ten illuminating indicators, from the fertility rate in Singapore (one) to the median age in Catalonia (forty-three), Paul Morland shows how demography is both a powerful and an under-appreciated lens through which to view the global transformations that are currently underway.
Tomorrow's People ranges from the countries of West Africa where the tendency towards large families is combining with falling infant mortality to create the greatest population explosion ever witnessed, to the countries of East Asia and Southern Europe where generations of low birth-rate and rising life expectancy are creating the oldest populations in history. Morland explores the geographical movements of peoples that are already under way - portents for still larger migrations ahead - which are radically changing the cultural, ethnic and religious composition of many societies across the globe, and in their turn creating political reaction that can be observed from Brexit to the rise of Donald Trump. Finally, he looks at the two underlying motors of change - remarkable rises in levels of education and burgeoning food production - which have made all these epochal developments possible.
Tomorrow's People provides a fascinating, illuminating and thought-provoking tour of an emerging new world. Nobody who wants to understand that world should be without it.
The future of both humanity and the planet depends on the shape of human population growth, the only aspect of our future that can be confidently predicted. In ten thought-provoking chapters, Paul Morland explores ten illuminating trends that will determine that shape, from the fertility rate of Singapore to the ageing of the Japanese.
Dr Paul Morland is a Senior Member of St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Educated at Oxford, he received his Ph.D. from the University of London. He is the author of The Human Tide - How Population Shaped the Modern World, which has been translated into nine languages, and he has contributed articles on demography to newspapers in the UK and beyond. A dual UK and German citizen, Paul Morland lives in London with his wife and has three adult children.
Morland predicts the future of humanity in 10 illuminating
statistics (could the Japanese and Italians now go the way of the
dodo?) and looks back to how ebbs and flows of population have
shaped history, such as the Soviet Union’s plummeting birth rate in
the 1960s, which hastened the end of the Cold War.
*The Daily Telegraph *
Compulsively readable. Regarding the cultural and political
implications of enormous pending shifts in human population,
Morland manages to remain admirably neutral; readers can draw their
own conclusions. Will the future be better or worse? Only one thing
is certain: it will be very, very different.
*Lionel Shriver*
Paul Morland provides the demographic key to understanding so much
of recent history and contemporary society - from Chinese cities,
to global ageing and the rise of Africa. With great authority and
an eye for the vivid detail he opens a door that I was scarcely
aware of, persuading me that demography really is the master social
science.
*David Goodhart*
An accomplished whistle stop tour of world demographics.
**
Paul Morland is emerging as the foremost chronicler of today’s
global demographic revolution. Through ten striking numbers,
Tomorrow’s People relates the breath-taking social changes produced
by the spatially uneven transition from population explosion to
decline.
**
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