People love to hate him, but when historian Alison Bashford stumbled across the 1803 edition of Malthus’s ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’, an updated version of the first publication in 1798, she saw the British parson and political economist in a whole new light. The 1803 edition contained extra chapters, one of which examined population through the experience of the young colony of NSW. Alison Bashford began to realise that there was a great deal more in Malthus’s thesis than had been assumed-his study of the New World raised questions about colonialism, occupation, land, and how we share it- deeply moral and enduring concerns, which the contemporary world continues to grapple with.
Publications:
Title: Geopolitics and the World Population Problem: life and earth in the global twentieth century
Author: Alison Bashford
Publisher: Columbia University Press [forthcoming]