“The fire burned on, and the next doubling of our population would take only 200 years from 1700-1900. There would be one and a half billion humans at the end of it, all but half a percent belonging to our culture, East and West. It would be a period in which, for the first time, religious prophets would attract followers simply by predicting the imminent end of the world: in which Australis, New Guinea, India…would be claimed or carved up by the major powers of Europe; in which indigenous people all around the world would be wiped out in the millions by diseases brought to them by Europeans.”