The Population Bomb

The Population Bomb (1968) is a book written by Paul R. Ehrlich, which was immensely popular among liberals and taught in high schools throughout the 1970s, though many conservatives objected to the ideas put forth in the book.

The book declared that:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate ....

Conservatives at the time objected to the book, which was based on the premise that the food supply would not increase to keep up with population growth (see Limits to Growth). In fact, the food supply increased and mass starvation did not occur, except in countries with inefficient infrastructure or anti-Capitalist economies (see Bangladesh).

However, Ehrlich was not the first to come up with this theory; His theory was a more calamitous version of the theory proposed by Thomas Malthus centuries earlier.

The theories of population growth underlying the book continue to be held by proponents of population control today, though they no longer cite the book as an authority.

A bestseller with the public, the book ranks #11 on a conservative list of the worst books of the 19th and 20th century.