The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation

It's incredibly interesting how public opinion and perception of these issues (overpopulation, but also other kinds of scarcity, i.e. food, energy, water) came to be.

The by far best book on the subject is Charles Mann's "The Wizard and the Prophet" [1]. It is also one of the best books I've ever read.

It shows how - from the middle ages through today - the idea of scarcity vs. technological advances have played out, explains which characters played a role and where we stand now. Lots of interesting people make side appearances, i.e. (tragic/demonic) Fritz Haber, Norbert Wiener etc.

[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/220698/the-wizard-a...