"Hoff’s thoughtful historical analysis of how the interplay between our dynamic economy and population has been imagined, debated, and enacted in policy provides a powerful model of how to understand the complex array of issues that will shape the political economy of population in the future."

American Historical Review

“In his excellent book The State and the Stork, Derek Hoff examines the ways in which economists, demographers, social scientists and politicians in the US have traced patterns in Malthus’ domain. Hoff’s is an elegant clarion call to demographic arms, and . . . an assured guide through two centuries of Malthusian wrangling.”

Robert J. Mayhew | Times Higher Education

“The State and the Stork takes up an enduring but often ignored question in modern American political history. How precisely have debates concerning the dynamics of population expansion affected the development of modern public policy and statecraft in the American experience? Strangely enough, there has been little in the way of recent scholarship that directly addresses this query—nor has there been a genuine effort to construct a narrative that spans the entirety of American history and squarely confronts it. It is this gap in the literature that Derek S. Hoff fills in a significant and original fashion.”

Michael A. Bernstein | Tulane University

“After decades of failed efforts by the scientific community to alert the public to the environmental dangers of population growth and overpopulation, a first-rate historian has finally detailed both the arguments and their policy implications. Derek S. Hoff has taken a comprehensive look at the debates in the United States between those who realize as Malthus did that the growing population will sooner or later outstrip Earth’s capacity to support people and those who imagine that there are no limits to that growth. Everyone interested in population should read The State and the Stork. This is an incredibly timely book.”

Paul R. Ehrlich | Author of The Population Bomb and The Dominant Animal

“Derek Hoff has taken an important, complicated topic and traced it over the whole of American history. The research on display here is striking in its breadth and depth, Hoff’s insights are penetrating, and his interpretation is original. The State and the Stork is a solid piece of scholarship.”

Robert Collins | University of Missouri