for understanding the complex interactions betweengovernance and development. Khan has whetted ourappetite for further country-level case studies whichwould include a wider range of case studies, allowing usto compare successful and unsuccessful projects in eachcountry, and hence to explore further the operation of

government and its interactions with the emerging civilsociety.

Dr. Michael BambergerSenior Sociologist=Gender Analysis & Policy Poverty

Reduction and Economic Management, The World Bank

FULL HOUSE: REASSESSING THE EARTH'S POPULA-TION CARRYING CAPACITY by Lester R. Brown andHal Kane, 1995, Earthscan, 261 pp, paperback, £10.95,ISBN 1 85383 251 0

The arguments of this book are simple. According toBrown and Kane the world's population carrying capacityhas now reached a critical point. The signs are patentlyvisible: trends have shown that food security has con-tinued to fall as the growth in world population hasincreased from 38 million at mid-century to nearly 90million in the mid-nineties. This has occurred in spite ofthe increasing use of fertilisers and the adoption of high-yield varieties of crops. Furthermore, there are indicationsthat the oceans have been overharvested, the rangelandsovergrazed, and water scarcity has become more andmore widespread. Equally disturbing is that once the poorgain purchasing power, they inevitably seek to move upthe food chain and consume more animal protein, whichin turn exerts further strains on the environment. Simul-taneously, when populous countries like China and Indiaindustrialize, they increasingly lose croplands at a ratethat exceeds improved land productivity. The shortfallmeans a huge growth in demand for grain import and adrastic decline in grain available for export. Anticipatingthat the consumption of grain in the other nine mostpopulous countries namely, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran,Pakistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Brazil and Mexico, willalso double in the next 40 years, the authors conclude thatfood prospects are grim.

In order to redress this imbalance in thefood=population equation and to restore global security,the authors suggest an international effort is imperative.This requires an international budget, involving massiveredirection of the world's ®nancial resources to, on theone hand, an increased expenditure on family planningservices, education and women's right to reduce fertilityrates, and on the other hand to the reforestation and soilconservation to curb the degradation of agriculturalresources in the South.

There would be few, even if not environmentalists, whocould disagree with Brown and Kane that the growth ofthe world's population and the deterioration of the earth'senvironment is not of universal concern. Nor could any-one purport that the global strategies the authors suggestin the text are entirely inappropriate or insigni®cant.However, there are some nagging problems in theauthors' analyses.

Although in the main Brown and Kane have beencareful in presenting their predictions and the futurefood=population imbalances, their suggestion that socialdisintegration, political fragmentation and spreadinganarchy either in the South, or by implication, in theNorth, are often fed by rapid population growth and

environmental degradation is at once simplistic. Forexample, the loss of valuable farmland in many parts ofcoastal China to rural industries as well as to propertydevelopment=speculation is more of a consequence of thein¯ow of foreign investments and economic greed offoreign investors than a result of increased population.The emerging aspiration of a `modern' consumerist life-style in countries like China or Thailand is more anindication of the hegemonic `demonstration effect' fromtourists generated by the North, rather than the outcomeof population growth. As Todaro (1994: 207) remarks, `theproblem of population is not simply one of numbers butinvolves the quality of life and material well-being. ThusLDC [Less Developed Countries] population size must beviewed in conjunction with developed-country af¯uencein relation to the quantity, distribution, and utilization ofworld resources, not just in relation to indigenousresources of the LDCs.'

Viewed in this context, the limitations of the solutionsthe authors offer in the text are obvious. All of the policiesor strategies discussed by the authors are framed in thediffusion paradigm of the modernization theories -emphasising ®nancial assistance, the provision of familyplanning services, education, and the empowerment ofwomen. What has been forgotten here is that populationgrowth in the South is intricately linked to the North'sown excess depletion of nonrenewable world resourcesthrough unnecessary consumption of products thatintensively use such resources.

The responsibility of the af¯uent consumers in theNorth is well acknowledged by Ehrlich and Ehrlich(1990). `The collective choice we make as consumers canaccelerate or slow global warming, acid rain, the loss ofbiodiversity and so on. Individuals have a responsibilityto make choices that help to preserve Earth's habitability.

Seen here, Brown and Kane's refusal to address theissue of Northern extravagant consumption within theiranalysis is puzzling. Ultimately this has weakened muchof the impact of the book and has reduced it to a readingof the apocalypse, if not another case of subtle victimblaming.

David IpDept. of Anthropology and Sociology

The University of QueenslandBrisbane, Queensland 4072

Australia

REFERENCES

Ehrlich, R and Ehrlich, A. (1990) The PopulationExplosion.Simon Schuster, Australia.

Todaro, M.P. (1994) Economic Development (5th Ed.).Longman, London.

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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 99

# 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. SUST. DEV. VOL. 5: 95±99, 1997