Be Fruitful and Multiply cover art

Be Fruitful and Multiply

How Fertility and Innovation Have Changed Humankind and the Earth

Pre-order free with Premium Plus
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Be Fruitful and Multiply

By: Donald Worster
Narrated by: Tom Beyer
Pre-order free with Premium Plus

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $24.37

Pre-order for $24.37

About this listen

A groundbreaking history that explores how human desires have affected our relationship with the natural world, and why this is a cause for hope

Donald Worster looks back over 200,000 years of Homo sapiens to show how human nature, especially the drive for food and sex, has responded to environmental conditions throughout history. Examining how this process led from foraging to the agrarian revolution and then to a capitalist way of life, Worster brings us face to face with a third transformation of human society that is beginning to take shape in China: an ecological civilization.

This meticulously researched book explores how human desires have driven us to overrun our environments, and how we have adapted by creating new relationships with the earth. Tying the past to the future and humans to the planet, Worster acknowledges that we are at a potentially dangerous tipping point. Yet he offers a surprisingly optimistic vision, full of faith in the strength of our human desires, to help us develop exciting futures in a changing world—as we have done time and again—and achieve a good life for the billions of us trying to survive on a finite planet.

©2025 Donald Worster (P)2025 Tantor Media
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.