A History of the Twentieth Century

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In 1952, the year this volume opens, the population of the world was approaching 3,000 million (three billion). In the second half of the century it had more than doubled, to six billion, of whom 1,000 million live in China and at least 950 million in India. Merely to maintain life at a minimum level had become a struggle for at least a quarter of the governments of the world. The refugee population had also doubled. At the same time, the destruction of the resources of the planet had increased. From fish in the oceans to trees in the rain forests, the failure of human restraint had begun to lead to irreversible changes in the ability of the planet to sustain the existing level of well-being. In many areas of the globe, that well-being is itself minimal.