The Human Drift

The Human Drift is a collection of odds and ends by Jack London, originally published in 1917, shortly after his death. The title piece is an essay in which London summarizes many of his ideas on the evolution of mankind and civilization. He asserts that man's progress has been entirely motivated by hunger. As food production has increased, so has population, but eventually population will overcome subsistence, and we will suffer from famine and disease, as Thomas Malthus predicted.