New York: Basic Books / Perseus, (2014). Hardcover first edition - A provocative look at the forces that have enabled man to move from being just another mammal to the dominant force on earth by this MacArthur award winning environmental biologist. The change has been rapid - "In 1950, there were 2.5 billion of us, only 30 percent of which lived in cities. Today there are nearly 7 billion of us, and more than 50 percent of us live in cities. By 2050, there will be 9 billion humans, with 70 percent of us in cities... Yet humanity's footprint on the planet has expanded exponentially in the last century. Each manipulation of nature increased the amount of food our species could produce. The result is the Big Ratchet of the twentieth century, and today's explosion of mouths to feed, meat-laden diets, overcrowded cities, and the irony of overweight populations with too much food in some countries, while others starve." Illustrated with small drawings and graphs. Notes, references, index. xii, 273 pp. ISBN: 978-0465044979.