After the Spike
population, progress, and the case for people
$69.18
- Hardcover
320 pages
- Release Date
7 July 2025
Summary
After the Spike: Navigating the Coming Age of Global Depopulation
What if the challenge for humanity’s future is not too many people on a crowded planet, but too few people to sustain the progress that the world needs?
Most people on Earth today live in a country where birth rates already are too low to stabilize the population: fewer than two children for every two adults. In After the Spike, economists Dean Spears and Michael Ger…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781668057339 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1668057336 |
| Author: | Dean Spears, Michael Geruso |
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Imprint: | Simon & Schuster |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 320 |
| Release Date: | 7 July 2025 |
| Weight: | 581g |
| Dimensions: | 229mm x 152mm x 25mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
“Counterintuitive… . Spears and Geruso have started an essential conversation on how humans might realistically address the vexing challenges of population change.”– “Booklist (starred review)”“After the Spike is a remarkable blend of empirical research and philosophical argument that has challenged, and changed, my thinking about population. I expect it will do the same for you.”
—-Peter Singer, author of The Life You Can Save and Animal Liberation
“After the Spike is an important book. Demography is destiny; Spears and Geruso tell a surprising story and show us how to shape that destiny for a sustainable, flourishing world.”–Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America and author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”
“Fascinating, thoughtful, and timely. Spears and Geruso are ahead of the global conversation. In ten years, everyone will be talking about global demographic decline and what to do about it. Read this book before your friends and rivals figure out the importance of this topic.”–Simon Johnson, 2024 Nobel Laureate in Economics
“I don’t agree with every suggestion in this book of course, but I think it offers up some interesting and important conversations that we’d do well to take seriously. And a world in which parenting is easier would be a huge improvement!”–Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun and The End of Nature, founder of Third Act and 350.org
“Spears and Geruso present a clear-eyed and compassionate argument about what we have to lose - not just from the worldwide drop in births already underway, but also from harmful and counterproductive attempts to boost births by coercing women’s and couple’s childbearing decisions.”–Diana Greene Foster, author of The Turnaway Study, MacArthur Fellow, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco
“Spears and Geruso take us by the hand to understand the most dramatic period of human history–how a global population of millions became billions–but, importantly, what happens next. The insights and rigor–which come thick and fast–are matched by human and empathetic narrative.”–Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World
“With stunning clarity, Spears and Geruso show why our assumptions about population, progress, and prosperity are leading us astray. If you want to understand where humanity is going, and why that matters, this book is essential reading.”–Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, When, and Drive
About The Author
Dean Spears
Dr. Dean Spears and Dr. Michael Geruso are economists, demographers, and associate professors at the University of Texas at Austin. Spears is a founding executive director of r.i.c.e, (a research institute for compassionate economics), a nonprofit that works to promote children’s health, growth, and survival in rural India. Geruso served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on healthcare and population change. Their research on health, population, and climate change has been published in top peer-reviewed journals including the American Economic Review, Nature Climate Change, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Both live in Austin, Texas.
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