“With stunning clarity, Spears and Geruso show why our assumptions about population, progress, and prosperity are leading us astray. If you want to understand where humanity is going, and why that matters, this book is essential reading.”―Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, When and Drive  

“Spears and Geruso take us by the hand to understand the most dramatic period of human history — how a global population of millions became billions — but, importantly, what happens next. The insights and rigour — which come thick and fast — are matched by human and empathetic narrative." ―Hannah Ritchie, Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, author of Not the End of the World 

“As our political and demographic conversations shift from panic about over-population to panic about de-population, Spears and Geruso present a clear-eyed and compassionate argument about what we have to lose – not just from the worldwide drop in births already underway, but also from harmful and counter-productive attempts to boost births by coercing women’s and couple’s childbearing decisions.” ―Diana Greene Foster, author of The Turnaway Study, MacArthur Fellow, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco 

"Breaking apart from the familiar natalism and anti-natalism debates, Geruso and Spears make a rousing case for population stabilization that is as stirring as it is thoughtful, rigorous and morally uncompromising. Pushing against the alleged self-evidence of the benefits of a declining population—to the environment, to women—After the Spike shows why a stable population is not just compatible with climate action, gender equality and a higher, equitably-distributed standard of living, but why it may just be their necessary condition." ―Anastasia Berg, UC Irvine, author of What are Children For? 

"Fascinating, thoughtful, and timely..." ―Simon Johnson, 2024 Nobel Laureate in Economics