The Human Tide

A dazzling new history of the past 200 years, recast as a story of population: how irrepressible, uncontrollable, and undeniable demographic changes have made and unmade nations, continents, and empires The advance and subsequent retreat of the British Empire; the emergence of America as a superpower; the ebb and flow of global challenges from Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Soviet Russia. These are the headlines of history, but the rise and fall of empires cannot be properly grasped without understanding the role that population has played.The Human Tide reveals one of history's greatest causal factors, a guiding hand too long hidden from view. It shows how rapid population transition, arriving in different places at different times, has shaped the course of world history since it first began in the British Isles, then spread to other European populations and then the rest of the world. Demography - the study of population - is the key...