I could hardly put this book down. It was very interesting. Paul Ehrlich has thought, along with Malthus, that the population explosion on Earth will cause widespread famine, hunger, war, environmental damage, etc. Fred Pearce has a contrarian view that because of falling birthrates we are headed for a population crash. For example, he takes us to ghost towns in Germany, deserted because women have not had children and the population has not been replaced. It seems to me that in some places there is a population explosion (e.g. Africa) and in other places there is a population crash (Germany, Japan, Taiwan, etc). The question of Earth's population is a complex issue, and it's different in different places. I enjoyed this book a lot because of its fresh thinking and engaging writing on an important topic.