Description

---

The provocative historical work on social economy, demography, and population control.
 
Malthus' life's work on human population and its dependency on food production and the environment was highly controversial on publication in 1798. He predicted what is known as the Malthusian catastrophe, in which humans would disregard the limits of natural resources and the world would be plagued by famine and disease. He significantly influenced the thinking of Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace and his theories continue to raise important questions today in the fields of social theory, economics and the environment. 

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

---

THOMAS MALTHUS gratuated from Cambridge and settled in Hertfordshire as a lecturer in history and political economy at the East India Company College. Among his many works, An Essay on the Principle of Population was the most sucessful and most outrageous. He boldly opposed popular Enlightenment ideals of the 18th-century.