Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single-Child Families - Hardcover

"The next I-search:50 years," says the author, "will be crucial to our planet's future--they are the years that could so devastate the earth's biology that it will never again be able to support life as abundantly as it does at present". This is a big topic for a relatively short book and an elegant writing style combined with good editing of information and points means that McKinnen's book does manage to explore this idea fully.

The chapters are headed "Family", "Species", "Nation" and "Self", and each travels a fascinating path through past research, ideas and future predictions, made cohesive by the author's own passionate beliefs. Although its main pool of facts and figures source from the US, much of it is universal and McKinnen discusses global issues too.

Advocating one-child families is a difficult and controversial issue, as the author readily points out, and this is one of the sticking points that he wrestles with in the book. Instead of asking whether we should have just one child, he asks: what if we don't?

As the author himself says: This is the last chance to change the world. --Alison Jardine

"What stands out in this eloquent book... is McKibben's wonderfully illuminating and entertaining work in tracking down our national prejudice against only children and single-child families. There and throughout this call to arms, the reader feels the added dimension of a father's love."--Publishers Weekly

"A timely book."--Booklist

"An impassioned call for Americans to limit their offspring in the name of the planet."--Kirkus Reviews

"A warmly personal exploration of what may be humankind's most compelling dilemma."--The San Francisco Chronicle

"One of those rare books that encourages the reader to think and gives us the tools with which to do so; it has a point of view without ever becoming doctrinaire. For all its sobering issues, it is a delight to read. McKibben is that better kind of optimist, one who sees a problem and finds liberation in sculpting an answer."--The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review

"Compelling."--The Boston Globe