and, where appropriate, revised to address current challenges. As with the previous editions, the questions posed in the text are answered cogently.
For this fourth edition, new sections have been included that extend the scope of discussion beyond the previous conceptual and geographical limits. For instance, Chapter Two's Section 5 ''Africa, America, and the Slave Trade,'' now contains much more detail of the USA's past, including aspects of the slave trade. In an enlarged Section 8 of the same chapter, ''On the Threshold of the Contemporary World,'' new data from China as well as from Europe are considered. In discussing possible scenarios for the future, Chapter 6 now includes a new section that details a significant issue for both the developed and developing countries: ''The North-South Divide and International Migration.'' These additions join those that were included already in the third edition, such as the impact of HIV infection on levels of mortality and on the sustainability of rising life expectancy figures. HIV/AIDS data (Table 6.5) however are included to 2004.
Overall, data on current trends in developing countries have been updated, and the United Nations new population projections to the year 2050 have been included. Fertility and mortality data too have been revised, as well as the contents of the Bibliography. Figures and Tables are clearly set out and the text too is informativealthough some further Figures and diagrams would have clarified those instances where detailed statistics are listed in the text.
Livi-Bacci's History will continue to appeal to final-year undergraduate and to post-graduate students in this field as well as to health managers and policy makers wishing to understand better demographic processes and their impact upon health planning. But with its additional content, revised and updated data, as well as the wide scope of its subject matters, this fourth edition remains the reliable and excellent classic text for anyone with a serious interest in understanding more about population changes.