# The Human Tide Author: [[Paul Morland]] ## Review I wanted a basic understanding of how demographics have shaped history and this book was exactly what I was looking for. The author covers the most important regions of the world over the past 200 years by describing how fertility rates, birth rates, marriages, migrations, life expectancy and deaths factored into some of the important political and economic trends and events. Demographic changes were analyzed through the lens of demographic transition theory. The author mentions that the baby boom is an anomaly in this theory which was a disappointment to me. How can one of the most important factors shaping our world today be considered an anomaly? There is clearly something wrong with the theory. The author wrote a book about demographic engineering before this one, so he includes a lot of interesting details about government perception and involvement in demographics. These might have been my favourite parts of the book, in particular because I have become interested in the recent shift to pro-natalist policies around the world. I left with the impression that governments can have big impacts on demographics, particularly through the birth rate, but ultimately the choices of people matter more in shaping trends. He stresses at multiple points that demographics are a bottom up phenomena (at least migration and births are) but doesn't really analyze what drives people to make those choices. He makes references to countries where demographics don't follow the transition theory (such as Israel) and comes up with some possible reasons but I would like to know why those people's decisions are different, perhaps backed up through research or surveys. The lack of bottom up research is one reason for losing a star. The other reason is the complete lack of visualizations of quantitative information. Large sections of the book are dedicated to verbally describing the data. It's boring to read and difficult to follow. ## Key Ideas ## Related