Under the Banyan Tree: A Population Scientist's Odyssey Book

Humanpopulation growth has long been a topic of uncertainty, speculation, and spirited debate. Since the early 1800s, when the English economist Thomas Malthus predicted that population will increase faster than the food supply, with catastrophic results, human beings have grappled with the specter - and the realities - of unsustainable population growth. Today, even as fertility rates decline on a global scale, explosive increases in population threaten to destabilize entire regions of the world. No single individual has contributed more to our understanding of human population than Sheldon J. Segal has. Developer of Norplant and a pioneer of contraceptive research, Segal has orchestrated the international clinical trials of every new contraceptive in the last quarter century. In this volume, the cornerstone of a unique career, Segal draws on his accumulated wisdom and experience to examine every aspect of human reproduction, population, and contraception. Tracing the changes effected by both social engineering, as with China's enforced "one child" family planning, and galloping scientific advances, the book recounts the logistical and political dilemmas of population control. As we follow Segal from meetings with heads of state and foreign ministers through to his impassioned, grass-roots efforts to secure suitable funds for impoverished countries, we gain a behind-the-scenes perspective on how individuals and nations juggle humanitarian and scientific concerns with political agendas. Informed at every turn by Segal's keen intelligence and humane values, Population and The Banyan Tree skillfully blends engaging narrative with history and analysis, providing a dramatic and all-encompassing portrait of this most elemental of human concerns.Read More