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Exhaustively updated, this second edition provides a current assessment of world population and the range of economic, social, and environmental issues it raises.

What do we now know about the future capacity of the Earth to support humankind? How do experts approach the wide range of economic, demographic, and environmental issues affected by population rates?

The publication of the first edition of World Population: A Reference Handbook offered the first accessible introduction to this vital field of study. Now ABC-CLIO presents a thoroughly updated new edition, incorporating a wealth of new research and data to explore population issues affecting countries all over the world. Readers will see how everything from plagues and famines, to disease control and contraception, to economic development and landmark judicial decisions have influenced population patterns. The work also features two new chapters; an updated timeline of key events relating to global population putting the issue into long-term perspective; and biographies of key individuals to put a human face on the study of population.

• Primary documents including "Warning to Humanity, November 18, 1992" from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which warns of the perils of continued population growth among the poorer nations and continued "overconsumption" by the richer ones
• A chronology of population "milestones," such as the 1968 publication by the Sierra Club of Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb, which built public awareness of the effects of rapid population increase