ABSTRACT
Viewed in long-run perspective, the growth of the earth's population has been like a long, thin powder fuse that burns slowly and haltingly until it finally reaches the charge and then explodes. As the birth rate dropped to lower levels, the point was reached in northwestern and central Europe where the rate of population growth began once more to approach stability. The sociocultural transition known as the Industrial Revolution has been accompanied by an intimately related demographic transition, representing an astounding gain in human efficiency. As Western civilization spreads from its present centers to the rest of the world, carrying with it a wave of population growth, it becomes clear that the Europeans, by originating, utilizing, and diffusing their modern mode of life, have become its victims. One groundless basis for fear is the implicit racialism in most Anglo-American thinking.
