text: Such are the brute facts of population decline. Why it has happened, what the consequences of it will be, and what we can do to arrest it make up the remaining bulk of Last's book. The most general cause of population decline is modernity itself; birthrates started declining in the nineteenth century when industrialization and technological advances began to accelerate. Better nutrition, sanitation, and health care, for example, have reduced infant mortality in America from about 300 babies dying out of 1,000 live births in 1850, to about six today. More babies surviving lessened the need for multiple pregnancies, which in turn reduced family size.