The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap [Paperback]

'It gave me great pleasure, not least because it is so elegantly written; and above all it did what all splendid books should do, it whetted my curiosity' - Roy Porter
'Rewarding and innovative.' - The Times Higher

'The crescendo of a highly successful writing career...a very remarkable book by a very remarkable man.' - Peter Laslett, The American Historical Review

'In The Savage Wars of Peace, we have a rare work combining highly dense and detailed scholarship with both lucid prose and an intriguing argument for students of both demography and politics.' - Bethany Lacina, Journal of Peace Research

"Presents a compelling reading of the lost world which gave birth to our own." THES --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

This book aims to solve the problem of how parts of mankind escaped from an apparently inevitable trap of war, famine and disease in the last three hundred years. Through a detailed comparative analysis of English and Japanese history it explores such matters as the destruction of war, decline of famine, importance of certain drinks (especially tea), the use of human excrement and the effects of housing, clothing and bathing on human health. It also shows how the English and Japanese controlled fertility through marriage and sexual patterns, biological and contraceptive factors, abortion and infanticide. It proposes a new historical methodology through the examination of chains and causation.

At one level this is a book of detection, trying to solve one of the great unsolved mysteries of history. At another it is a work of cultural transition, trying to explain the material and cultural underpinnings of East Asia (Japan) and Europe (England) through a long historical period. It thus combines history, anthropology, medicine and demography with a detailed use of contemporary sources such as traveller's accounts, diaries and medical texts.

This book is concerned with the escape of an increasing number of people from the trap of war, famine and disease. Two hundred years ago, leading thinkers such as Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon and Thomas Malthus could not see how the inhabitants of the earth, then numbering less than a billion, could be adequately fed, clothed and housed. The world now holds over six times that number, half of whom live well above subsistence level. In The Savage Wars of Peace Alan MacFarlane seeks to explain how this has happened.

Through detailed comparative analysis of English and Japanese history the book explores such matters as the destruction of war, decline of famine, importance of certain drinks (especially tea), the use of human excrement and the effects of housing, clothing and bathing on human health. It also shows how the English and Japanese controled fertility through marriage and sexual patterns, biological and contraceptive factors, abortion and infanticide. It proposes a new way of linking cause and effect in history.

At one level this is a book of detection, trying to solve one of the great unsolved mysteries of history. At another it is a work of cultural translation, trying to explain the material and cultural underpinnings of East Asia (Japan) and Europe (England) through a long historical period. It thus combines history, anthropology, medicine and demography with a detailed use of contemporary sources including traveller′s accounts, diaries and medical texts. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

ALAN MACFARLANE is Professor of Anthropological Science at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College. In 1986 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. His previous books include The Making of the Modern World and The Riddle of the Modern World, both published by Palgrave.