People and the planet

Mr Morland offers remarkable insights - albeit entirely from the demographic perspective - into the progress of human society over the past two hundred years

THE HUMAN TIDE: How Population Shaped the Modern World

Paul Morland

Hachette India; Pages 344, Rs 599

The Human Tide is a demographer’s take on questions such as why the industrial revolution first took place in Britain; why the United States and Russia emerged as superpowers; why America voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and Donald Trump in 2016, and Britain for Brexit; and why there is growing support for far-right parties such as the Front National in France and the Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany. 

Describing population as “a supreme force in history”, Paul Morland, an associate research fellow at Birkbeck,