More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Engelman
Publisher: Island Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 70097
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1597260193
Dewey Decimal Number: 304.62
EAN: 9781597260190
ASIN: 1597260193
Publication Date: May 8, 2008
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Product Description
In the capital of Ghana, a teenager nicknamed “Condom Sister” trolls the streets to educate other young people about contraception. Her work and her own aspirations point to a remarkable shift not only in the West African nation, where just a few decades ago women had nearly seven children on average, but around the globe. While world population continues to grow, family size keeps dropping in countries as diverse as Switzerland and South Africa. The phenomenon has some lamenting the imminent extinction of humanity, while others warn that our numbers will soon outgrow the planet’s resources. Robert Engelman offers a decidedly different vision—one that celebrates women’s widespread desire for smaller families. Mothers aren’t seeking more children, he argues, but more for their children. If they’re able to realize their intentions, we just might suffer less climate change, hunger, and disease, not to mention sky-high housing costs and infuriating traffic jams. In More, Engelman shows that this three-way dance between population, women’s autonomy, and the natural world is as old as humanity itself. He traces pivotal developments in our history that set population—and society—on its current trajectory, from hominids’ first steps on two feet to the persecution of “witches” in Europe to the creation of modern contraception. Both personal and sweeping, More explores how population growth has shaped modern civilization—and humanity as we know it. The result is a mind-stretching exploration of parenthood, sex, and culture through the ages. Yet for all its fascinating historical detail, More is primarily about the choices we face today. Whether society supports women to have children when and only when they choose to will not only shape their lives, but the world all our children will inherit.
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Birth Control Can Save the World August 29, 2008
Engelman demonstrates that providing women a basic level of health care, including effective birth control, will solve the problem of overpopulation!
This is an optimistic view and provides useful guidance for every person and every nation which is concerned about overpopulation and overstressed world resources.
More for kids, not more kids August 26, 2008
Reports vary, but about 2752 people died in the 9/11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. In response, the United States has spent (so far) over a trillion dollars and perhaps half a million people have died in a "war on terror" all this with vast amounts of media coverage.
Today, and every other day since 9/11, about 22,000 people died of complications of hunger, most of them children, 8 million a year. In addition, violent conflicts, genocides and natural disasters come fundamentally from too many people competing for too little space. But population has almost disappeared from media and public debate. The U.S. spends less than $400 million a year on family planning programs. Before 2015, barring disaster, human population will have grown from 1 billion to 7 billion in just over two hundred years. Many ecologists think we are in "overshoot" with current population unsustainable on this small planet. Engelman's book, in this context, should be read by everyone.
Engelman's combination of a sharp reporter's eye and ear with serious depth of historical research and long population NGO experience packs this book with big ideas and fascinating stories. He paints the historical big picture--while quoting the moving words of a poor woman in Kenya. Engelman made a serious effort to listen to what women, throughout history, had to say about family planning and child bearing. He empathizes with the challenges women face in places where large families lead to higher death rates and poverty for children and women. He spent two decades observing successful and unsuccessful population control efforts.
The core message of More : "Women aren't seeking more children, but more for their children." ( p8) If every woman was free to choose family size and had access to birth control, the world's population would stabilize. And, that would be a very good thing for many reasons including reducing poverty, war, disease and environmental losses--and, by the way, terrorism. The price tag for providing birth control to every poor woman would be a fraction of the U.S. budget for the Iraq war.
This message is even more important and fundamental than Al Gore's global warming Jeremiad, in fact, the growth in human population drives global warming and most other environmental disasters. Population growth will almost certainly stop during this century. What remains to be seen is whether this pause will occur mainly by reduction in birth rates and longer lives (as in Europe) or continued high birth rates and shorter lives (as in Africa). Will humans be wise enough to stop growth or suffer growth and collapse? Engelman argues that individual women prefer fewer children with longer lives, better futures and higher incomes.
Engelman does a nice job of making population history understandable and simple. Where demographers and ecologists might talk about logistic functions, Engelman points out that population growth meant that our pre-historic ancestors, at certain times, must have been able to raise three or more children. Any surplus above replacement fertility levels leads to exponential population growth. He traces historical evidence that women practiced birth control, abortion and infanticide for thousands of years in recognition that having fewer children improved their children's lives. If everybody in the world read this book and acted on its message, the human future would be far brighter.
While agreeing with everything Engelman says, I do feel that now that human population has increased above sustainable levels, your children--or rather, the sum of the 375,000 births per day, 136 million births per year--affect outcomes for my children. The world children will inherit differs depending on population growth--with a range of possible outcomes from collapse to prosperity. "Your rights do not include the right to damage others" logic led to all kinds of regulations such as drivers' licenses, drunk driving laws, zoning and land use regulations and so on. Governments do have a role in regulating population while protecting individual's rights, in fact, to protect individual's rights (to peace and a habitable planet, for example, not to mention affordable gasoline). When our actions affect other people--including future generations for millions of years-- then governments need to help women get to the good outcomes they want for their children by promoting responsible family planning. More countries are going to need something like China's one child policy to bring population and resources back into balance. Most Chinese have accepted the one child policy as preferable to living in a country with over 4 billion people--the forecast that led to the policy.
Engelman's message is more optimistic--he says population stability will happen by individual choices where women are free to control reproduction. But if so many responsible couples choose smaller families, why should irresponsible people be allowed to make life dangerous and resources scarce and expensive for the rest of us? An ancient Babylonian flood story quoted by Engelman "depicts overpopulation... as so painful the land itself howls." (p. 97) Alas, Babylon.
An important read July 31, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was a very enlightening read for me. The author does a really good job of making his case for family planning and the necessity of making sure that women have control and plenty of choices over their bodies and reproduction. This book really details the problems with population rise, and gives a pretty good historical account of why population stability is so important. This is an important book that needs to be read.
The author offers the reader a pretty good thumbnail sketch of the theories of where we Homo Sapiens originally came from, and why it was that we ended up on top rather than some of our distant cousins. Many of these theories are subjective and in the field of evolutionary biology there are as many theories as there are really good scholars, pretty good scholars, amateurs and your run of the mill crackpot, so for the number of pages the author does a really nice job giving the reader a good sampling of theories without overloading the reader.
Next the author gives the reader a very interesting history of contraceptives, attitudes towards sex over human history, feminism and opposition to all of these. I was fascinated to learn parts of history I was completely ignorant about before reading this book. The author also posits some very interesting theories about humans move to agrarian societies all the way to the witch trials in Europe. The author makes a very strong argument for sex and population being very important prime movers in human events. Of course population size and sex are always important, but this book has put forth some ideas I had not considered before.
What was very compelling for me was the author's work and description of working in third world countries. Reading his interviews with these people and getting an idea of the desperation they live with and the problems they face because they do not have access to adequate contraceptives or education was distressing. I couldn't imagine a life spent either pregnant or taking care of an infant all of ones life, or having sex be similar to playing Russian roulette where every encounter could cause pregnancy or disease. Even more than that was how badly these people want access to contraceptives and family planning resources which is heartbreaking. As I was reading about all the deaths and disease attributable to abortions and births performed in unsafe conditions that could have been prevented with nothing more than a simple condom you realize how lucky we are and just how little it would take to change other peoples lives for the better.
This book has some very well thought out arguments with detailed conclusions backed up with historical data and first hand research. Not only that but the author presents the material in a very accessible way. The book is short which diminishes the intimidation factor, and will hopefully make it more palatable for a more general readership. My one main criticism is that I hate the silly little puns and some of the attempts at levity that peppers this work. The author is obviously a well educated individual who has written a well thought out scientific book that is meant to be taken seriously. These puns and metaphors in scientific works are the bane of my existence. I cannot express the depth of my loathing for this practice. They irk me to no end. With that said, I understand that the author was attempting to give this book a wider readership and perhaps these attempts at levity help to lighten a very deep and serious subject for readers helping to bring more people to the book, but my understanding that doesn't have to mean that I like it. I didn't take off for it though, but felt I still needed to vent here a little.
This is a very serious subject, and is one that needs our attention now. This book is important for the discussion that needs to be taking place now. With that said I highly recommend this work.
Finally... a compassionate AND well reasoned approach to population and environment June 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Engelman's MORE is a book I thoroughly enjoyed. It it is an affirmation of the intelligence of women, men and midwives throughout history and to the present. Contrary to approaches taken often by governments or religious orders, Engelman posits that trusting women to determine their own family size will benefit everyone. Not least in this equation is concern for the long term well being of our overall environment, the home and origin of all of life on earth. For too long, many of us in professions, healthcare and academia have been fearful and careful not to speak of human population in combination with environmental sustainability because of mistakes and abuses of certain efforts of population control. But, to avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water (this pun is evocative here!), we have to admit that there are irrevocable links between human numbers and activity and environmental well being. Engelman takes us on a journey utilizing historical information and recent scientific consensus though several disparate disciplines, which builds a coherent narrative and winds up with some solid recommendations. It is no easy task to bring together such scholarship, long term vision and rich detail. It reads like intriguing journalism, and a good novel with solid reference work thrown in. I counted numerous references to contraceptive plants used throughout several cultures and time periods, a history of midwives, a thorough account of human-primate prehistory among other things. The protagonists were resourceful women and men, often pitted against those whose intent was to exert control over other women's fertility. Did you know, for instance, that in 1792, the mother of the future author of frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote essays about women's rights and parenting which included information about how breast feeding can augment family planning because it decreases fertility? The volume More teems with insight and examples which will inspire those who work for a future that is plentiful. You may find yourself taking notes like I did, to use in talks and lectures, or to trace back for yet more information. Or you may find that it is a well supported affirmation of an integrated way of looking at the earth. More makes clear that we are one species in a vast web, and to achieve "more" over a longer time, we must learn to take a little less room. Engelman's book shows that this is not a new idea, but that this is the time for such a synthesis.
Emme Edmunds is a Midwife and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner currently pursuing a PhD in Development Sociology. She is interested in connecting issues of human rights and women's autonomy with birth control and environmental susatainability.
Trusting women and respecting history May 7, 2008
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Finally, a book about population and family planning that those of us who work on population issues can distribute proudly to those who aren't in the field!
Engelman outlines the history of women managing their fertility through the ages, from our humble beginnings as homo erectus through modern day. Throughout human history some women have prevented conception with herbs and pessaries. And some women have always backed up these methods with abortion and infanticide.
His point is that women's desire to have small families is not new and that modern contraception should be available to any woman who wants it, in order to avoid the crude methods that our ancestors were stuck with.
Engelman writes about women with great respect and humorously describes why men and women so often differ on their ideas about ideal childbearing (both timing and total number). In fact, humor is an integral part of this book. Engelman was a journalist in a past life and his catchy, accessible writing style shines through on every page.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about demography, women's reproductive rights, and/or anthropology. This book should interest just about anyone and is not the dry, academic sort of textbook that you might expect of this topic. I'm even going to propose it as a selection for my monthly book club!
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