Human Population Competition.  (1998) by Jack Parsons

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Table of contents

Review-excerpts

Table of Contents

Volume 1
Front matter
List of tables vii
A note on presentation viii
Acknowledgements ix
Preface xiii
Part I The population/resources/quality of life problem
1) A brief introduction 1
Part II Introduction to competition in general
2) Environments, plants, and animals versus each other 17
3) Humans versus environments, plants, and animals 43
4) Humans versus humans in general 67
Part III Human population competition
5) Sexual and population competition in small groups 111
6) Who belongs? 159
7) Is Small really Beautiful? 187
8) Population quantity v. population quality 205
9) Religious population competition 235
10) Political population competition 261
11) Military population competition 299
12) Racial and ethnic group population competition 321

Pt. III continued in volume 2

Volume 2
Pt. III continued
13) Economic population competition 373
14) Effectiveness of population competition policies 407
Part IV Effectiveness of number-power
15) Number-power against the environment 433
16) Number-power in society generally 463
17) Number-power in war 495
18) Number-power in population control 513

Part V Problems arising
19) Theoretical considerations 537
20) Ethical considerations; (a) cooking the books 561
21) Ethical considerations; (b) the Kamikaze conscience 613
22) Rationality in human behaviour 643

Part VI Conclusions

23) Possible ways forward 679
24) Optimum populations 717

End matter
Bibliography 743
Personal name index 781
Place index 789
Subject index 797
Stop press 804
List of tables
1/1 GNP per head and population doubling-times 8
2/1 Competition between fir trees in different conditions 30
4/1 Number of wars and casualties: World; ad 1500-1990 103
10/1 Cardiff City's ranking in terms of number-power 264
10/2 Attitudes towards population growth in own and other groups 295
19/1 Bibliography search on population competition 547
21/1 Ratios of spending on self to spending on others, via charity 636

List of figures
1/1 Growth of the human population: AD 0-2000 ad 4
1/2 Population growth rates and numbers added: 1950s to 2040s 7
1/3 Relationship between population, quality of life, and resources 9
1/4 Quantity of natural resources 10
10/1 Local population competition in South Wales 263
14/1 Total fertility rates by ethnic group in Peninsular Malaysia; 1957-87 424
15/1 The effect of population growth on carbon dioxide emissions 442
15/2 Historical increase in total human number power against the environment with no increase in technology 454
15/3 Historical increase in individual power against the environment with increased wealth and technology 455
16/1 In-group number factor; historical trend 491
17/1 Decreasing number-power factor vis-à-vis out-group 508
19/1 Linkage between number-power, belief, and action 558
24/1 Growth curves for the 'quasi-optimum' population 738

List of photographs
10/1 Soviet 'Mother-Heroine' medal 283
11/1 German mothers receiving birth awards 303

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Review-excerpts

In his pre-publication review of the manuscript for the publisher, Professor David Pimentel, Department of Entomology, Cornell University, wrote:
A compelling book ... thoroughly analyses the values and behaviour of many groups which are actively pursuing the belief - frequently by means of competitive breeding - that there is power in numbers ... this superb book carefully documents a wide array of issues while helping the reader to understand the vital population and environmental problem. (Edwin Mellen Press book flyer, 1998 -)

The six post-publication reviews to hand so far - excerpted here in reverse temporal order - largely concur:

6) What a monumental publication. This makes one of the most remarkable assessments of population I have ever encountered. For all that its 800 pages are jam packed with statistics and detailed analyses, it is a compelling account of what must be the front rank phenomenon of the past quarter million years ... the explosive outburst of human numbers. Jack Parsons ... a leading population expert and patron of the Optimum Population Trust ... has done a formidable service in alerting us to a crucial though little explored aspect of the phenomenon, in the form of competition and often conflict between human communities. ... [This is] the meat of the book, and it makes absorbing reading. ... The treatment is replete with illustrative examples and rigorous appraisal. ... Parsons lays out our choices through elegant and persuasive argument. How I wish I could have had his book to hand when I first broached the subject of population and security in the late 1980s ... it is weighty without being ponderous, exhaustive without being exhausting. It sparkles with scholarship ... and wraps up with 1400 references and 1300 names of persons cited. A monumental compendium, which is typical of both the substance and spirit of the book throughout. ... Parsons is to be congratulated on a masterly evaluation of his subject -- a thesis that has been largely overlooked in the vast literature on population. Read the book and you will find it as entertaining as it is instructive .. All in all the book should rank as a must for demographers, sociologists, security experts, historians, political scientists, and whoever else is concerned with human population. Who among us cannot be concerned? (Dr. Norman Myers, CMG. Visiting fellow, Green College, Oxford. The Environmentalist. 21 (1) June (2001) pp. 80-81

5) Reading [this book] was a breathtaking and enlightening experience. [it] was impossible to put aside once reading had started, and I look forward to returning for a close reading of key sections. ... The text is one of its kind, gathering all sorts of information and reasoning ... otherwise available only in disparate places ... A main problem for this reviewer has been that the work is beyond competition within the social sciences ... Better leave the final words to the author and quote one of the many truly great passages in his text [though selecting] one is quite difficult since many of [his] results are wildly controversial, politically, and cannot be quoted in fairness with[out] the surrounding detailed reasoning .... (Morten Lintrup, Demografisk Råd Og Selskab, Denmark. The Pherologist, 3 (1), Feb. 2000, p.1. Pub. in English at Emmeloord, Netherlands)

4) The core of the book [is] the massive compilation of quotations documenting competitive breeding ... [and] it is alarming to discover both how widespread and how recently persisting is this form of insanity. ... Parsons, by richly covering every topic remotely relevant to his main subject, has produced a fascinating, often entertaining and always extremely readable book, written with verve, wit, and integrity. The diversity of his illustrative material is remarkable [but] the whole message of [his] book is summed up in his quotation of the magnificent words of Martin Luther King:

'In the need for family planning, Negro and white have a common bond: together we can and should unite our strength for the wise preservation not of races, but of the one race we all constitute, the human race'. ... The book has all the qualities of a best-seller except the price - I hope there will soon be a cheap edition. (WMS Russell, Prof. of Sociology, Reading University. Medicine, Conflict & Survival.16 (1) 2000, pp.140-42)

3) [This is] the fruit of 30 years' collecting of evidence ... on what the author says is "one of the most widely tabooed subjects" ... Conflict, devolving into violence, is seen as innate and pervasive in human societies. As directed into reproduction, it is manifested in machismo (and "machisma") at the individual level and in the pronatalism of clan, ethnic, religious, and national groups ... [He seeks] to establish the pervasiveness of population competition throughout history and at many different social scales, and the important role it has played in overall population increase. He is also at pains to show the economic, social, and environmental ill effects of that increase, and the speciousness of the contrary case. ... [He] is correct that the politics of numbers has been a comparatively neglected field in population studies, and his investigations and commentary on the subject draw attention to much relevant material - as well as making for provocative and entertaining reading. (G. McNicoll, Senr. Associate, Policy Research Division, Population Council, New York, & Professor, Demography Program, Australian National University, Canberra. Population & Development Review. 25 (3) Sept., 1999, pp. 609-10)

2) In this excellently written book (in English and not in "Demographese") ... Jack Parsons has outdone himself... literally, to use a baseball analogy [he] covers all the bases ... As one reads through these handily-sized volumes ... the reviewer becomes increasingly amazed at the immensity of Parson's knowledge and background. Human Population ... is undoubtedly his magnum opus, as well it should be. [and] I must confess to be in agreement with most of [his] positions. ... In sum, this is a truly excellent book ... [with] the best index I have ever seen. ... [However] the publisher should be commandeered to have [him] prepare an abbreviated one-volume edition so that many more people would read it and learn from it. Then Jack Parsons would really be performing a great duty for our movement. (Leon F. Bouvier, Professor of Demography, Tulane University. The Social Contract, Winter issue 9 (2), 1999, pp. 116-8)

1) Parsons amply documents how human groups embrace numbers as the great elixir that guarantees success in the quest for military power, political influence, economic prosperity, and just plain prestige and validation … urges [which have] become supremely destructive forces for the planet and its nations, including [the USA] ... He is deft at producing the illustrative quotation from even the obscure corners of human thought ... Population competition, [he] reminds us, is not just about having more people of the right kind. It is at its deadliest when it strives to have fewer people of the wrong kind, driving out or slowing the growth of unwanted populations.

The book's title does not do justice to the amplitude of [his] interests. This ambitious book is also about the human population's competition with its own environment and with ... other life-forms. It discusses the centrality of population competition in natural selection B humans not excluded ...[and] has a great deal to say ... about the anthropology, biology, and ideology of human reproduction, citing [many] obscure cultures ... Parsons' book stands as a major resource in [the] struggle [to combat] human irrationality and ignorance about numbers with rational dialogue, education and persuasion through democratic processes.
(David Simcox, Head of Migration Demographics, Louisville, Kentucky, & Chairman, Policy Board, Center for Immigration Studies, Washington, DC. The Social Contract. 10 (1) Fall, 1999, pp.55-9)

Naturally, most reviewers -- though not all -- have reservations, also, but the consensus is very favourable.

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