Letter
Malthus
25 October 1979
SIR: It appears from Rosalind Mitchison’s account in your last issue of Patricia James’s new biography of Malthus that one of the book’s strengths is its portrayal of Malthus’s ability to change his mind (LRB, 25 October). We are asked to see the producer of a ‘chilling’ social theory as being prepared to alter his positions with ease, as ‘someone who saw the subject as a field not for...