The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C Mann

The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C Mann

From the best-selling, award-winning author of 1491 and 1493--an incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's world.

In forty years, Earth's population will reach ten billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups--Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. Cut back was his mantra. Otherwise everyone will lose The Wizards are the heirs of Norman Borlaug, whose research, in effect, wrangled the world in service to our species to produce modern high-yield crops that then saved millions from starvation. Innovate was Borlaug's cry. Only in that way can everyone win Mann delves into these diverging viewpoints to assess the four great challenges humanity faces--food, water, energy, climate change--grounding each in historical context and weighing the options for the future. With our civilization on the line, the author's insightful analysis is an essential addition to the urgent conversation about how our children will fare on an increasingly crowded Earth.

CHARLES C. MANN is the author of 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, a New York Times bestseller, and 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, which won the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Keck Award for the best book of the year. A correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, Science, and Wired, Mann has covered the intersection of science, technology, and commerce for many newspapers and magazines here and abroad, including National Geographic, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. In addition to 1491 and 1493, he is the co-author of five other books, one of which is a young person's version of 1491 called Before Columbus.

REBECCA STEFOFF has devoted her career to writing nonfiction books for young readers. Her publications include histories, literary biographies, an encyclopedia of maps, and numerous books on science and environmental issues. She has also adapted a number of landmark works in history and science: Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, and Charles C. Mann's bestselling 1491.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780307961693
ISBN 10	0307961699
Title	The Wizard and the Prophet
Author	Charles C Mann
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Knopf Publishing Group
Year published	2018-01-23
Number of pages	640
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable