Saltar a navegação
The Bet
Book

The Bet

Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future

Yale UP, 2013 mais...


Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Background

Recommendation

In this lively discussion, professor Paul Sabin reviews the last half-century of America’s environmental debate and the partisan politics surrounding it. His lens is a famous bet between biologist Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon, both major figures in the environmental discussion. Ehrlich, who helped shape its early phase, is especially prominent, but each man came to represent a different political position in the debate. Sabin covers the ground dramatically, demonstrating the importance of context and rhetoric in any major public debate. If the book has a weakness, it’s that Sabin’s focus can seem, like the bet itself, to devolve to a great-man model of history. getAbstract recommends this unusual exploration to those interested in environmentalism, politics, free market ideology, US history and, of course, the future of the planet.

Take-Aways

  • Economist Julian Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich symbolize the “two poles” of the 1970s debate over the environment and humanity’s future.
  • Ehrlich helped foment and shape popular fears of overpopulation.
  • His argument treated humanity as one species among many, based on his studies in population biology.

About the Author

Paul Sabin, associate professor of history at Yale University, is founding director of the Environmental Leadership Program. He also wrote Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900-1940.


More on this topic