Malthus: The Life and Legacies of an Untimely Prophet - Rilegato

Mayhew, Robert J.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0674728718 ISBN 13: 9780674728714

Casa editrice: Belknap Pr, 2014

Riassunto

Thomas Robert Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population was an immediate succès de scandale when it appeared in 1798. Arguing that nature is niggardly and that societies, both human and animal, tend to overstep the limits of natural resources in "perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery," he found himself attacked on all sides--by Romantic poets, utopian thinkers, and the religious establishment. Though Malthus has never disappeared, he has been perpetually misunderstood. This book is at once a major reassessment of Malthus's ideas and an intellectual history of the origins of modern debates about demography, resources, and the environment.

Against the ferment of Enlightenment ideals about the perfectibility of mankind and the grim realities of life in the eighteenth century, Robert Mayhew explains the genesis of the Essay and Malthus's preoccupation with birth and death rates. He traces Malthus's collision course with the Lake poets, his important revisions to the Essay, and composition of his other great work, Principles of Political Economy. Mayhew suggests we see the author in his later writings as an environmental economist for his persistent concern with natural resources, land, and the conditions of their use. Mayhew then pursues Malthus's many afterlives in the Victorian world and beyond.

Today, the Malthusian dilemma makes itself felt once again, as demography and climate change come together on the same environmental agenda. By opening a new door onto Malthus's arguments and their transmission to the present day, Robert Mayhew gives historical depth to our current planetary concerns.

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Recensione:

A stylish, well-written, exuberant, and cleverly conceived book. "Malthus "is a thoughtful and skillful achievement. --Donald Winch, author of "Wealth and Life: Essays on the Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain"

What made this epochal moment in the history of ideas, argues Mayhew, was that it was the first systematic analysis of the entwinement of population, environment and economy. And because so many of our own problems revolve around this nexus, a fresh account of Malthus insights and of the myriad responses they gave rise to, was sorely needed. [...] it is the wide range of techniques it interweaves to recreate the unique fabric of Malthus intellectual life - including comparative biography, comparative literature and the study of contemporary journals - that make this a singularly rich portrait. [...] Covering a wide temporal span, Mayhew explores these legacies with extraordinary penetration and nuance [...] --Times Higher Education, May 2014

"The Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus liked to look on the bright side. True, that hasn t been the usual assessment ... [but] you just have to get over the awkwardness of setting him within significant strands of contemporary religious thought and see him a bit like he saw himself. That s what the early parts of Robert Mayhew s fine book aim to do, while the later parts valuably trace Malthus s historical transformation into the cacophony of what was called Malthusianism through the 19th and 20th centuries. ... Mayhew describes the continuously contested legacy of what it meant to be a Malthusian, to commend or condemn Malthusianism in the two centuries after the Essay was published. But his book is also inevitably about us as we too are obliged to think about our numbers, about nature and its resources, and about policies for living in a finite world." --Steven Shapin, London Review of Books

Mayhew s signal contribution is to remind us that the population debate has been contentious for much of the period since Malthus original Essay of 1798. The book also helps us to understand the dangers of both pro- and anti-Malthusianism. - Literary Review

[L]et me commend Mayhew for his outline of how the famous writers of the 19th century reacted to Malthus big idea . - Prospect

Mayhew pushes beyond the stereotypes of Malthus to recover the historical reality...this is a compelling read. --BBC History Magazine

In his admirably rounded Malthus: The Life and Legacies of an Untimely Prophet, Mayhew draws our attention to the actual writings of this pioneer of demography and political economy, and to his historical context. [...] Mayhew makes a convincing claim for him as a founder of what is now called environmental economics . --Times Literary Supplement

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Belknap Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0674728718
• ISBN 13: 9780674728714
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 284