Prologue: opening the door on Malthus's rollercoaster -- Before Malthus: population, economy and environment in eighteenth century England -- Prophets of perfection: a revolutionary triptych -- The first inconvenient truth: Malthus's essay and the quiet revolution of 1798 -- "Diarrhoea of the...

"Thomas Multhus's provocative and prescient 1798 work on the dangers of population growth attracted support and violent criticism in equal measure, and has been praised, misinterpreted and remade ever since. Malthus argued, with clarity and logic, that the rate of population growth will always...