Book Reviews

Peter Suderman | 10.30.2025 2:09 PM

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, by Paul Kingsnorth, Thesis, 368 pages, $32

Since about 1970, infant mortality in the United States has decreased by roughly 75 percent. The United Kingdom has seen a similarly striking decrease. Globally, infant mortality is dramatically lower now than in the early 1970s.

Those are dull percentages—statistics, not individuals. But over time, they represent millions of babies, children, and eventually adult human lives that would not have existed if prior rates of infant mortality had held. You may know some of these people yourself. Depending on the circumstances of your birth, you may be one. Our modern world is full of them.

And that's just the last five and a half decades. In the century prior to the 1970s, the total decline was even larger. A newborn's survival went from a gamble to something closer to a certainty. In postwar America, the decline in infant mortality was so significant that it may have been partly responsible for the baby boom. Yes, there are still too many children who don't make it to their first birthday. But the number is practically infinitesimal compared with the norm prior to the industrial revolution.

Or consider global nutrition. In 1970, about a third of people in developing countries were undernourished. Today, that figure is a little less than nine percent. Yes, there are........

© Reason.com