Title page from An Essay on the Principle of Population [1798, 1st ed.]

An Essay on the Principle of Population [1798, 1st ed.]

This is the first edition of Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population. In this work Malthus argues that there is a disparity between the rate of growth of population (which increases geometrically) and the rate of growth of agriculture (which increases only arithmetically). He then explores how populations have historically been kept in check.

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