Be Fruitful and Multiply
How Fertility and Innovation Have Changed Humankind and the Earth
Will be published approx. on 6. January 2026
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-0-300-27897-2 (ISBN)
Description
A groundbreaking history that explores how human desires have affected our relationship with the natural world, and why this is a cause for hope
Donald Worster looks back over 200,000 years of Homo sapiens sapiens to show how human nature, especially the drive for food and sex, has responded to environmental conditions throughout history. Examining how this process led from foraging to the agrarian revolution and then to a capitalist way of life, Worster brings us face to face with a third transformation of human society that is beginning to take shape in China: an ecological civilization.
This meticulously researched book explores how human desires have driven us to overrun our environments, and how we have adapted by creating new relationships with the earth. Tying the past to the future and humans to the planet, Worster acknowledges that we are at a potentially dangerous tipping point. Yet he offers a surprisingly optimistic vision, full of faith in the strength of our human desires, to help us develop exciting futures in a changing world-as we have done time and again-and achieve a good life for the billions of us trying to survive on a finite planet.
Donald Worster looks back over 200,000 years of Homo sapiens sapiens to show how human nature, especially the drive for food and sex, has responded to environmental conditions throughout history. Examining how this process led from foraging to the agrarian revolution and then to a capitalist way of life, Worster brings us face to face with a third transformation of human society that is beginning to take shape in China: an ecological civilization.
This meticulously researched book explores how human desires have driven us to overrun our environments, and how we have adapted by creating new relationships with the earth. Tying the past to the future and humans to the planet, Worster acknowledges that we are at a potentially dangerous tipping point. Yet he offers a surprisingly optimistic vision, full of faith in the strength of our human desires, to help us develop exciting futures in a changing world-as we have done time and again-and achieve a good life for the billions of us trying to survive on a finite planet.
Reviews / Votes
"With his customary brio and imagination, Donald Worster, the doyen of environmental historians, takes on world history, putting food and fertility front and center."-J. R. McNeill, author of The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945"Donald Worster's Be Fruitful and Multiply revolutionizes environmental history by placing planetary and human fertility at the center of our understanding of humanity's past and future possibilities on earth. Worster crafts a sweeping narrative that challenges conventional pessimism with a scientifically grounded optimism about our capacity for intelligence and adaptation."-Nancy Langston, author of Sustaining Lake Superior: An Extraordinary Lake in a Changing World and Climate Ghosts: Migratory Species in the Anthropocene
"This is Donald Worster at his best: history transformed into philosophy. Be Fruitful and Multiply is bold and provocative; overflows with wisdom; and is full of passion for all life on earth."-Christof Mauch, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich
"Donald Worster presents a wide-ranging discussion of what drives humans (food and sex) and how they relate to environmental issues. His analysis is as penetrating as it is provocative. This book will be groundbreaking for years to come."-Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, coauthor of Journey of the Universe
"Donald Worster's book is far-reaching, ambitious, and exciting, a new classic in the field of environmental history."-Edward D. Melillo, author of The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
565 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-27897-2 (9780300278972)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Donald Worster is an award-winning author and one of the founders of the field of environmental history. His many books include Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, winner of the Bancroft Prize. He lives in Corvallis, OR.