This is the title of a new book by Professor Sir Alan Parkes, CBE, ScD, FRS, with the assistance of Mrs Frances Dennis.
‘‘With his mind full of mice and elephants’’, the distinguished biologist Sir Alan Parkes takes a unique perspective on the human problems of our time. Refusing to build a wall of professional jargon around population issues, he prefers to simplify them and relate them to a wide range of global events that threaten the future of the earth and its people.
After four chapters covering the essential elements of demography, he moves on to identify and describe a catalogue of disasters from which it is remarkable that so many have survived. He describes the widespread degradation of the natural environment as consequences of man’s increasing numbers and technology. There is always a BACKLASH, not least the backlash of sophistication as we foul our nest and our air and add man-made disasters to the natural hazards that affect human numbers.
Sir Alan Parkes died in July 1990 after a long and distinguished career, having continued to the very last to work on the present book which he wished to be published after his death.
Published by the Parkes Foundation, March 1993. ISBN 0 907232 08 6. 240pp; 102 line illustrations. Price £16.00/US $24.00.