John Rennie Short Demography and the Making of the Modern World: Public Policies and Social Forces, Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing, 2024. 171 pp.

In Demography and the Making of the Modern World, John Rennie Short aims to fill a gap between “on the one hand, demographers who like numbers but are uncomfortable with broader social and cultural theorising and, on the other, social and cultural theorists who tend to be uncomfortable with numbers and public policy analysts who tend to focus too little attention on demographic issues” (p.2). The book is framed as drawing on demographic research but without focusing on statistical modeling. Instead, the emphasis is on the social, economic and political implications of demographic trends, and the potential mediating role of public policy. The author aims to act as a conduit between professional demography and a wider audience to “reveal the demographic forces that shape our modern world”