The Invention of Scarcity: Malthus and the Margins of History

A new interpretation of Thomas Robert Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population reveals his narrow understanding of food production and how his omissions provided a rationale for colonial imposition of British agricultural models. Deborah Valenze suggests pathways to resistance against the hegemony of Malthusian political economy by broadening our conception of human livelihoods and imagining a world where monoculture is in retreat and the margins are recentered as spaces of experimentation,nimbleness,and human flourishing.

Format: Hardback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 25 July 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press

British theorist Thomas Robert Malthus rose to prominence in modern political and economic thought with the publication of his Essay on the Principle of Population, which predicted food shortages due to rapidly growing populations. However, a radical new interpretation by Deborah Valenze challenges the conventional understanding of Malthus's ideas. Valenze argues that canonical readings of Malthus overlook his limited view of food production, which ignored diverse ways people adapted to subsistence needs.

Valenze reexamines the eighteenth-century contexts that shaped Malthus's arguments, highlighting how he employed a redemptive narrative of British historical development to dismiss alternative approaches to subsistence. She utilizes history, anthropology, food studies, and animal studies to redirect attention to the margins of Malthus's essay, where activities such as hunting, gathering, herding, and gardening were rendered irrelevant. By expanding our conception of human livelihoods, Valenze proposes pathways to resist the dominance of Malthusian political economy.

The Invention of Scarcity offers a vision of a world where monoculture is in decline and the margins are re-centered as spaces of experimentation, agility, and human flourishing. Valenze encourages readers to imagine a world where diverse livelihoods are celebrated and environmental diversity is acknowledged and valued. Through this innovative rereading, Malthus's ideas are re-contextualized, shedding light on the limitations of his theories and offering alternative perspectives for understanding the complexities of subsistence production and environments.

Weight: 438g
Dimension: 146 x 224 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300246131