From the best-selling, award-winning author of 1491 and 1493--an
incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists,
Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views
shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how
people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's
world.
In forty years, Earth's population will reach ten billion. Can our world
support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these
questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups--Wizards and
Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative,
nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a
founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our
planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. Cut back! was
his mantra. Otherwise everyone will lose! The Wizards are the heirs of
Norman Borlaug, whose research, in effect, wrangled the world in service
to our species to produce modern high-yield crops that then saved
millions from starvation. Innovate! was Borlaug's cry. Only in that
way can everyone win! Mann delves into these diverging viewpoints to
assess the four great challenges humanity faces--food, water, energy,
climate change--grounding each in historical context and weighing the
options for the future. With our civilization on the line, the author's
insightful analysis is an essential addition to the urgent conversation
about how our children will fare on an increasingly crowded Earth.
