Massimo Livi-Bacci is Professor of Demography at the University of Florence. A former president of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, his extensive research interests include contemporary demography as well as the history of population. He has taught and held fellowships at universities all over the world, including Princeton University, the University of California at Berkeley, the Collège de France, and the Colegio de México. His many publications include Population and Nutrition (1991), The Population of Europe: A History (Blackwell, 1999), and Conquest: The Destruction of the American Indios (2007).

This fifth edition of the essential history of world population is updated with the most recent and significant scholarship on the topic. Reworked sections analyze the impact of environmental and climate change, discuss declining fertility in developing nations, and track the continuing impact of HIV-AIDS.

- Central themes updated and revised to take account of new scholarship

- Includes new sections on theories of migration in pre-history

- Expands discussion of low fertility rates in developing Asian and Latin American countries

- Fuller coverage of population and environmental change, including the effects of climate change

- Bibliographic updates include weblinks to key scientific journals