One of my vanities is that all my novels are different. Yet one astute journalist identified a universal thread: ‘Too many people,' she said. From among the many other piquant factoids in Paul Morland's The Human Tide, I was unnerved to learn that ‘Hitler was obsessed with demography' too.
Whether you also suffer from this unhealthy preoccupation or are simply shopping for a new way of looking at the world, this is a readable, trenchant, up-to-date overview of the biggest story on the planet — one in which we're all actors. The author has a moderate bent, and doesn't claim that population — its surging, contraction and migration — explains all of human history. But it comes awfully close.
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