Promotional Information

The Wizard and the Prophet tackles the biggest question we humans are facing: can the earth sustain our growing population? Our very existence is reliant on finding an answer to this one big question.

About the Author

Charles C. Mann, a correspondent for The Atlantic, Science and Wired, has written for Fortune, the New York Times, Vanity Fair and the Washington Post, as well as for HBO and 'Law & Order'. A three-time US National Magazine Award finalist and the author of three previous books. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus won the US National Academies Communication Award for the best book of the year, and both that book and its sequel, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, were New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Mann’s storytelling skills are unmatched – the sprightly tempo with which this book unfolds, each question answered as it comes to mind, makes for pure pleasure reading . . . [Mann] provides detail enough, and simplicity enough, that anyone who is struggling with these puzzles will be enlightened and informed. And entertained, which, given the subject matter, is no small feat.
*New York Times*

Beautifully written . . . fascinating . . . Mann shows us that the arguments about the environment that are raging today have a long and rich history.
*Literary Review*

Does the earth’s finite carrying capacity mean economic growth has to stop? That momentous question is the subject of Charles Mann’s brilliant book The Wizard and the Prophet . . . A treasure house of knowledge . . . Indispensable.
*Wall Street Journal*

‘[Mann’s] gift for explaining science shines on every page . . . A stimulating, thoughtful, balanced overview of matters vital to us all. As the world, besieged by ever-more titanic storms and wildfires, threatens to explode into a terrifying new normal, books like this . . . are more necessary than ever.
*Boston Globe*

Masterful . . . Mann’s most spectacular accomplishment is to take no sides . . . An insightful, highly significant account that makes no predictions but lays out the critical environmental problems already us.
*Kirkus (starred review)*

This unique, encompassing, clarifying, engrossing, inquisitive, and caring work of multifaceted research, synthesis and analysis humanizes the challenges and contradictions of modern environmentalism and and our struggle towards a viable future.
*Booklist (starred review)*

A fascinating story of two forgotten men whose ideas changed our understanding of humanity’s place in nature . . . Mann offers a sympathetic, nuanced way to understand one of the fundamental debates of our time: How will 10 billion humans live sustainably on Earth, when our demands for energy and food are growing?
*Ars Technica*

Mann is a compelling and forensic analyst of big tipping points in human affairs.
*The Washington Post*