Population and Nutrition: An Essay on European Demographic History (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, Series Number 14) - Hardcover

Livi-Bacci, Massimo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052136325X ISBN 13: 9780521363259

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1991

Synopsis

From the time of Malthus, the insufficient supply of food resources has been considered the main constraint of population growth and the main factor in the high mortality prevailing in pre-industrial times. In this essay, the mechanisms of biological, social and cultural nature linking subsistence, mortality and population and determining its short and long term cycles are discussed. The author's analysis examines the existing evidence from the century of the Great Plague to the industrial revolution, interpreting the scanty quantitative information concerning caloric budgets and food supply, prices and wages, changes in body height and epidemiological history, demographic behaviours of the rich and of the poor. The emerging picture sheds doubts on the existence of a long term interrelation between subsistence of nutritional levels and mortality, showing that the level of the latter was determined more by the epidemiological cycles than by the nutritional level of the population.

About this title

Book Description

From the time of Malthus, the insufficient supply of food resources has been considered the main constraint of population growth and the main factor in the high mortality prevailing in pre-industrial times. In this essay, the mechanisms of biological, social and cultural nature linking subsistence, mortality and population and determining its short and long-term cycles are discussed.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 052136325X
• ISBN 13: 9780521363259
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English