Poverty and Life Expectancy is a multidisciplinary study that reconstructs Jamaica's rise from low to high life expectancy and explains how that was achieved. Jamaica is one of the small number of countries that have attained a life expectancy nearly matching the rich lands, despite having a much lower level of per capita income. Why this is so is the Jamaica paradox. This book provides an answer, surveying possible explanations of Jamaica's rapid gains in life expectancy. The rich countries could invest large sums in reducing mortality, but Jamaica and other low-income countries had to find inexpensive means of doing so. Jamaica's approach especially emphasized that schoolchildren and their parents master lessons about how to manage disease hazards. This book also argues that low-income countries with high life expectancy, such as Jamaica, provide more realistic models as to how other poor countries where life expectancy remains low can improve survival.

Poverty and Life Expectancy is a multidisciplinary study that reconstructs Jamaica's rise from low to high life expectancy and explains how that was achieved. Jamaica is one of the small number of countries that have attained a life expectancy nearly matching the rich lands, despite having a much lower level of per capita income. Why this is so is the Jamaica paradox. This book provides an answer, surveying possible explanations of Jamaica's rapid gains in life expectancy. The rich countries could invest large sums in reducing mortality, but Jamaica and other low-income countries had to find inexpensive means of doing so. Jamaica's approach especially emphasized that schoolchildren and their parents master lessons about how to manage disease hazards. This book also argues that low-income countries with high life expectancy, such as Jamaica, provide more realistic models as to how other poor countries where life expectancy remains low can improve survival.

Between 1800 and 2000 life expectancy at birth rose from about 30 years to a global average of 67 years, and to more than 75 years in favored countries. This dramatic change was called a health transition, characterized by a transition both in how long people expected to live, and how they expected to die. Rising Life Expectancy examines the way humans reduced risks to their survival, both regionally and globally, to promote world population growth and population aging.

Taking French participation in the Seven Years War as a case study, this book examines the effects of war on the economy and on government finance, finding that the economic toll has usually been exaggerated and the financial toll seriously underestimated. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Taking French participation in the Seven Years War as a case study, this book examines the effects of war on the economy and on government finance, finding that the economic toll has usually been exaggerated and the financial toll seriously underestimated.

Originally published in 1987.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"James Riley has crowned decades of work on the improvement of health with a splendid book that is engagingly written and accessible to all. It is a guide to the national achievement of better health and greater longevity. Hopefully, this book will help change the world."--John C. Caldwell, Emeritus Professor of Demography, Australian National University, Canberra
"James Riley's "Low Income, Social Growth, and Good Health" represents another major contribution to the understanding of the world-wide mortality transition of the past two centuries. Based upon extensive research, this book is important for historians and epidemiologists, as well as central to current policy debates, because of its demonstrations of the many factors that have influenced better health in addition to economic growth and new medications."--Stanley Engerman, John H. Munro Professor of Economics and History, University of Rochester