Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population is a 2008 book by Matthew Connelly, an associate professor of history at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Efforts to control population

Birth control

Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

 have been controversial, and Connelly argues that "the road to controlling population growth

Population growth

Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....

 in the 20th century was paved with good intentions

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

The road to hell is paved with good intentions is a proverb or aphorism.An alternative form of the proverb is "hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works".-Origin:...

 and unpleasant policies that did not work". For example, millions of intrauterine contraceptive devices were exported to poor countries although they were known to cause infections and sterility.

Reviews

• http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20080609/
• http://www.powells.com/review/2008_08_18.html