Volume 51, Number 16 · October 21, 2004
Bigger and Better?
By William H. McNeill
The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100:Europe, America, and the Third World
by Robert William Fogel
Cambridge University Press, 191 pp., $70.00; $23.99 (paper)
The Escape from Hunger is an important book by the Nobel economist Robert Fogel. The first three chapters offer a novel, tightly constructed, and convincing argument for a distinctively human form of what Fogel calls 'technophysio evolution,' described as 'biological but not genetic, rapid, culturally transmitted, and not necessarily stable.' At first blush, biological evolution that is not genetic may sound surprising, but it rests on firm and quantitative evidence, as he explains:
Review, 4089 words
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