lyndon@pobox.com (Lyndon
05-26-1999, 04:52 AM
Hi Craig
If any library near you has Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones ATLAS OF
WORLD POPULATION HISTORY you probably would find it a useful read. I
believe it is out of print.
However the PENGUIN ATLAS OF ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL, MODERN HISTORY (three
different paperbacks) is still showing up, and is a good read.
One of the nifty things about this is that essentially all the
maps in each book are the same scale, which really fairly shows
context.
Bad news: Historically population growth was not very fast, Europe
averaged 80% growth between 1300 and 1750 with a lot of technological
innovation. 40% in a century is remarkable for pre-industrial people.
There are exceptions. The British colonies in the Americas
for instance had enormous resources, and almost no new diseases to
cope with, so families with umpteen kids, majority surviving to
adulthood, were not remarkably uncommon.
4 children, even 4 surviing-past-the-first-year children is probably
way low. in 1991 (not a typo, in this decade) a survey of 500 Sudanse
women with an average age of 26 years and ten years of marriage was
conducted under the auspices of the Ahfad University College for
Women. The general fertility rate for Muslim Sudanese women at that
time was 6.0 children. Those women who exercised personal choice in
their husband (rather than traditional arranged marriages), and
especially the 13% who had salaried work outside home had on the
average 3.5 children ...
From ISLAMIC SOCIETY IN PRACTICE, by Carolyn Fluerhr-Lobban, c.
1994
===> In the abscence of plague, famine, invasion, monsters, etc. etc.
If any library near you has Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones ATLAS OF
WORLD POPULATION HISTORY you probably would find it a useful read. I
believe it is out of print.
However the PENGUIN ATLAS OF ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL, MODERN HISTORY (three
different paperbacks) is still showing up, and is a good read.
One of the nifty things about this is that essentially all the
maps in each book are the same scale, which really fairly shows
context.
Bad news: Historically population growth was not very fast, Europe
averaged 80% growth between 1300 and 1750 with a lot of technological
innovation. 40% in a century is remarkable for pre-industrial people.
There are exceptions. The British colonies in the Americas
for instance had enormous resources, and almost no new diseases to
cope with, so families with umpteen kids, majority surviving to
adulthood, were not remarkably uncommon.
4 children, even 4 surviing-past-the-first-year children is probably
way low. in 1991 (not a typo, in this decade) a survey of 500 Sudanse
women with an average age of 26 years and ten years of marriage was
conducted under the auspices of the Ahfad University College for
Women. The general fertility rate for Muslim Sudanese women at that
time was 6.0 children. Those women who exercised personal choice in
their husband (rather than traditional arranged marriages), and
especially the 13% who had salaried work outside home had on the
average 3.5 children ...
From ISLAMIC SOCIETY IN PRACTICE, by Carolyn Fluerhr-Lobban, c.
1994
===> In the abscence of plague, famine, invasion, monsters, etc. etc.