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This book provides a comprehensive and balanced assessment of the state of the Earth and its inhabitants at the close of the twentieth century. More than fifty scholars from all over the world present new, concise and accessible accounts of the present state of humanity and the prospects for its social and natural environment. The subjects range from deforestation, water pollution and ozone layer depletion to poverty, homelessness, mortality and murder. Each contributor considers the present situation, historical trends, likely future prospects, and the efficacy or otherwise of current activity and policy. The coverage is worldwide, with a particular emphasis on North America.
The State of Humanity is a magnificent and eye-opening synthesis of cultural, social, economic and environmental perspectives. It will interest all those - including geographers, economists, sociologists and policy makers - concerned to understand some of the most pressing problems of our time.

The State of Humanity updates and vastly expands 1984's The Resourceful Earth, edited by Simon and the late Herman Kahn. That book was intended to refute the influential 1980 Global Report to the President, which warned that "the world in 2000 will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable ecologically, and more vulnerable to disruption than the world we live in now."

In The Resourceful Earth, economists and scientists argued that the trends of the material conditions of the human race were all positive. As Simon writes in his introduction to The State of Humanity, "The years have been kind to our [1984] forecasts -- or more importantly, the years have been good for humanity."

The State of Humanity assembles the work of an impressive array of experts not only in fields related to material resources but also in such areas as life expectancy, childhood mortality, health and disease, murder and suicide, and leisure time.
The authors conclude, despite the forecasters of doom, things continue to improve worldwide year by year. Trends that persist on favorable paths include energy prices, oil supplies, nonrenewable resources, global forests, agricultural productivity, fish, farmland quality, and water and air quality. Other experts debunk fears surrounding nuclear power, acid rain, global warming, stratospheric ozone, pesticides, and cancer. The final section of the book looks at public opinion on issues such as population growth and the environment.

"Every forecast of the doomsayers has turned out to be wholly wrong," Simon writes in his introduction. "There is no convincing economic reason why these trends toward a better life should not continue indefinitely."

Julian L. Simon

Julian Lincoln Simon (February 12, 1932 – February 8, 1998) was a professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute at the time of his death, after previously serving as a longtime business professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Simon wrote many books and articles, mostly on economic subjects. His books include The Resourceful Earth (with Herman Kahn), The Economics of Population Growth, The Ultimate Resource, The Management of Advertising, Basic Research Methods in Social Science, and Applied Managerial Economics.

He is best known for his work on population, natural resources, and immigration. His work covers cornucopian views on lasting economic benefits from natural resources and continuous population growth, even despite limited or finite physical resources, empowered by human ingenuity, substitutes, and technological progress. His works are also cited by libertarians against government regulation.

The Institute for the Study of Labor established the annual Julian L. Simon Lecture to honor Simon's work in population economics. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign held a symposium discussing Simon's work on April 24, 2002. The university also established the Julian Simon Memorial Faculty Scholar Endowment to fund an associate faculty member in the business school. India's Liberty Institute also holds a Julian Simon Memorial Lecture. The Competitive Enterprise Institute gives the Julian Simon Memorial Award annually to an economist in the vein of Simon; the first recipient was Stephen Moore, who had served as a research fellow under Simon in the 1980s.

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