A new kind of book

"Over-Over-Over features a refreshingly spare text. There’s an introduction by the guiding founder of the Population Media Center, William Ryerson; a foreword by Musimbi Kanyoro, a veteran defender of family planning as a fundamental human right; and closing comments from Eileen Crist, an advocate for the myriad other species that our own overwhelming presence threatens to push off the planet. You should read their intelligent remarks, because it’s well worth the time – even though you’ll be tempted to go right to the pictures. And understandably so: The real star of this book is the photography."

There are thousands of essays, articles and books dealing with population but “Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot” provides a convincing new way of understanding the impacts of population size on human welfare and nature. Through well-chosen quotes, and stunning photographs, this largely visual presentation documents the realities and role of burgeoning human numbers on a broad variety of important areas including the destruction of wildlife and natural systems, air and water pollution, food insecurity and climate change.

A stunningly beautiful book, Over Over Over calls to mind the films of Godfrey Reggio, who some critics called to account for making the ugly—exploding napalm consuming whole villages—look visually compelling. Despite the beautiful images of often ugly things—degraded or devastated land and seascapes, wholesale slaughter of non-human creatures, human crowding and poverty—there is no getting lost and forgetting what is before us: the injury we have wrought as a species to others, the Earth and ourselves.