Book Review: “The Human Tide” by Paul Morland

Decent books about modern demographic history are apparently hard to come by. Thankfully, with this compendium, one can acquire a solid grasp of the topic with constant reference to its relevance for the present and future of humanity. Moreover, it explains these phenomena lucidly by applying modern demographic techniques and measurements such as the birth rate and the fertility rate, in order to entrench you in the demographic way of thinking.

The only major fault I found with the “The Human Tide” was its glaring lack of coverage of ancient and medieval history; it exclusively focuses on the time period stretching from the early modern period until today, which is a shame. On the other hand, it broadly charts global demographic history on a regional basis, starting with the “Anglo-Saxon” ecumene before heading over to the continent and from then to the rest of the world.

It’s still mainly Western and Eurocentric in outlook, feeding into the “Britain was the first modernized nation” narrative by using a Malthusian theoretical framework to approach questions of demography. But as the author himself states in the beginning of the book, demographic transition theory remains highly useful, and the most obvious objection to the paradigm, i.e. that its conceptual limits deny any unique developments in different parts of the world, rings true for all regions, including Europe.

Apart from that, I learnt a lot of fascinating tidbits and acquired a great deal of epiphanic insights to fill my gaps in modern demographic history, which is still a rather new field of inquiry to me.

The most mesmerizing fact for me wasn’t actually related to demography at all, but to cognate Anglo-Saxon ideology: Thomas Jefferson actually wanted to include the Saxon chiefs Hengist and Horsa in the US seal, because he conceptualized them as the true founding forefathers of English liberty, preceding the later imposition of the Norman yoke (such a crucial concept during the English Civil War, in opposition to the central notion of the freeborn Englishman).

Some other surprising facts I had the pleasure to learn:

• Iran has a lower birth rate than France, which in itself is not that much lower than that of the progressive Islamic nation of Bangladesh;
• Thailand is experiencing a trend towards childlessness among young women, gradually moving it towards the terrifying prospect of becoming an ageing nation before it grows wealthy;
• One out of ten villages in Russia are inhabited by fewer than ten residents due to massive rural depopulation, notoriously experienced in Southern Italy and Bulgaria as well;
• An entire industry has emerged in Japan to take care of burying childless seniors passing away in their lonely, abandoned homes;
• Sri Lanka has reached a stable multi-decadal plateau of 2.5 children in its average fertility rate, which is a possible sign of how prospective natal trends may play out differently in the Third World by not plummeting to sub-replacement fertility levels, like it has in the developed world;
• The Australian political left was initially the main driving force behind the White Australia policy, which in part carried on until the 1970s, chiefly targeted at Asian immigrants to protect native workers from declining wage levels, before the relatively rational economic concerns gave way to a more racialized rhetoric.

These were among the most intriguing morsels of knowledge that I happened come across, but they’re just a few gold nuggets among many. Do yourself a favour and grab a copy of this great work wherever you can find it.