Book Description
This volume comprises a collection of manuscripts by or relating to T.R. Malthus--recently discovered and previously unpublished--consisting of correspondence, sermons, essays and lecture notes on political economy and history. The manuscripts provide insights into Malthus' personal life--especially his relationships with his parents and his tutors, and also suggest hitherto unknown influences on his intellectual development. They represent a remarkable discovery, more than 150 years after Malthus' death. ... Read more

Book Description
The volumes are thematically arranged, examining first the life of Thomas Malthus and perspectives on his thought; secondly his Essay on Population and Principles of political thought: and thirdly Malthusian Economic Analysis. ... Read more

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Samuel Hollander provides the first in-depth study of Malthus's achievement as an economist. Malthus's message has been largely misrepresented by decades of careless and biased interpretation. In this volume, Samuel Hollander re-examines these interpretations and presents a full and coherent picture of Malthus's economics. He evaluates John Maynard Keynes's famous dichotomy between the Ricardian and Malthusian methods, proving that the two were far closer to each other than is generally supposed.The relation of Malthus's ideas to those of his predecessors is thoroughly examined, for example, his roots in the Wealth of Nations are demonstrated and the physiocratic and Sraffian dimensions of his work are brought to light. Hollander extends his analysis to biographical factors; he discounts the textbook perspective on Malthus as a social-welfare pessimist and dispels the common notion of Malthus as spokesman of the land-owning classes. The standard charges against Malthus of inconsistency and intellectual dishonesty are also challenged.

Samuel Hollander has produced the definitive study of Thomas Robert Malthus. A major contribution to the history of economic theory, the study has much broader appeal as a portrait of a central figure in early nineteenth-century debates over social policy -particularly those having to do with the role of government in relation to social welfare, economic growth, and trade protection. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

An important rethinking of Malthus
Ross' analysis of Cold War uses of Malthusian dogma is succinct and brings a fresh and consistent analysis to, "the increasing subordination of demographic thinking to the Cold War."Ross examines the uses of the United States' Cold War policy directives which representedthe underdeveloped world's demographic state (literally) as a "population bomb" needing to be defused by technicians from the North before its detonation shattered the global economic order.Further, Ross contextualizes Hardin's just-so-story of the Tragedy of the Commons as a Cold War parable passed on as empirical fact, a parable that teaches us that only private property, and an unequal distribution of resources can lead to social harmony.

The Malthus Factor is packed with detailed examples of how wide-ranging Malthus' impact on society has been, from discussions of the connections between the Green Revolution's fertilizer requirements and linkages between munitions industries and fertilizer industries, to links between the rise of the American Eugenics movement and the historical demise of American midwifery, to the roles of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in funding the Eugenics movement.Even readers who disagrees with Ross' theoretical approach to Malthus will learn something of value from his analysis.I expect that this book will soon become required reading for any graduate student studying for exams covering both demographic theory and political economy.

A critique of Malthusian thinking on capitalist development.
Synopsis from Amazon.co.uk-- This volume represents a major critique of the way Malthusian thinking has influenced capitalist development policy in the modern period, as well as in the past. It highlights the strategicrole of Malthusian ideas in the defence of capitalist political economywhen confronted by struggles for equality and human progress. ... Read more

Book Description
This unique collection brings together a wide range of responses to Malthus' works from 1798 through 1900. While it concentrates on responses to his ideas on population, this set also explores Malthus' contributions to political economy, especially those relating to the Poor Laws and the Corn Laws. The selections illustrate the wide-ranging, varied response to Malthus' work, and his powerful influence on supporters and detractors alike. There are contributions from literary figures and scientists, as well as economists, and responses from France and the United States as well as from the United Kingdom. ... Read more

Book Description
Thomas Robert Malthus created a considerable controversy with the 1798 publication of his Essay on the Principle of Population.Since then there has been a great deal of confusion about the ideas attributed to him.Donald Winch here examines the contribution Malthus made to political
economy, morality, and demography, and the changes his Essay underwent after its second, mature edition of 1803.He also assesses the profound influence Malthus had on Darwin and Keynes, and his influence on contemporary economic thought. ... Read more

Book Description
This book is a companion volume to the Royal Economic Soviety edition of The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, edited by Piero Sraffa with the collaboration of Maurice Dobb. It completes the record on Ricardian value theory by showing Ricardo's reaction to Malthus's pamphlet The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated of 1823. Ricardo's Notes are, in Sraffa's words, 'the only vonsiderable item' not appearing in the Royal Economic Society edition of his works. In addition, the recent publication by Cambridge of the variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy, edited by J. M. Pullen, makes it possible to understand Malthus's pamphlet as an intermediate step between the 1820 and 1836 editions of the Principles. In his introduction Pier Luigi Porta highlights the place of these Notes in the development of Ricardo's thinking. When taken with Ricardo's paper on 'Absolute Value and Exchangeable Value', these Notes provide the essentials of Ricardian value theory. ... Read more

Book Description
Are poverty, misery, famine, disease and war inevitably part of the human condition? Will the creations of science become uncontrollable and socially dangerous, like Frankenstein's monster? Or can science and education create a world of material plenty - a war-free world, where the benevolent, creative and intellectual sides of human nature will have a chance to flourish?
This book tries to answer these questions by tracing the history of a debate which took place among the economists, political philosophers and writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was a debate in which the Utopian vision of optimists such as the Marquis de Condorcet and William Godwin was opposed by those such as Thomas Robert Malthus, who believed that the benefits of scientific progress would inevitably be nullified by the growth of the global population. This book follows that debate, which also involved people such as Burke, Paine, Wollstonecraft, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Ricardo, Mill andDarwin. In a final chapter, the question of who was right is examined from the vantage-point of our own times. ... Read more

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This book offers a broad perspective on the issue of world hunger, analyzing the long-term data on food production from 1885 to the present. Exploring evidence of the validity of Malthusian theory throughout history, the book documents those cases where innovations in food-producing technologies were adopted in response to population pressures and crises of hunger. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay
A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay(Conservation, population, and the Indifference to Limits) by John F.Rohe is an extremely interesting, must-reading, for all responsible people. Alarming, yet exciting, to gain a realistic understanding of conservation. Thinking non-conservationists will become conservationists. Conservationists will find the back-up information to substantiate their beliefs.

Richard M. Shuster, Retired Circuit Judge
5th Judicial Circuit Court, Barry County,
Michigan

A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay
A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay(Conservation, population, and the Indifference to Limits) by John F.Rohe is an extremely interesting, must-reading, for all responsible people. Alarming, yet exciting, to gain a realistic understanding of conservation. Thinking non-conservationists will become conservationists. Conservationists will find the back-up information to substantiate their beliefs.

Richard M. Shuster, Retired Circuit Judge
5th Judicial Circuit Court, Barry County,
Michigan

Events are prooving Malthus right. We better take heed.
At a time when many people downplay Malthus, or even ridiculed him, his predictions are coming true-if we just take notice. This is certainly not visible in the suburban supermarket where many of the people who affectwhat is happening shop. However, for growing numbers of malnourished peopleon our planet, this is all too apparent. This fine book looks at theunderlying causes for this predicament and suggest that the only final wayto resolve this problem is to face up to our population problem. Increasingfood production, if that were still possible, only postpones the worst, andbecause the world's population would be larger, would make the sufferingeven more terrible. Everyone should read this book.

An excellent outline of our indifference toward the future.
Rohe addresses the natural limits that we face, population, resources, environmental degradation, the earths carrying capacity whose totality is a disease of being indifferent toward these limits. He write with theprecision and logic of a lawyer which he is. ... Read more