Over nearly four decades, Wolfgang Lutz has produced pioneering and highly influential research on demographic dynamics. His concern has been the demography of both low- and high-income societies and pre- and posttransitional societies. He has audaciously tackled the problem of forecasting future demographic trends. In this volume many of his major contributions over the decades are assembled in a coherent and concise package. The title of the volume notwithstanding, this is far less an introduction to the discipline of demography—although the coverage of key topics and concepts is impressive, considering the relative brevity of the volume—instead far more a synopsis of the scholarly work to date of this energetic and provocative scholar. For Lutz, the most worthwhile contributions of demography are population level and investigation of microfoundations is truly of value only if it is revealing of aggregate-level dynamics. He is insistent that demography possesses distinctive theories that advance our understanding of human societies, and he identifies and explains at some length three such theories: demographic metabolism, demographic transition, and demographic dividend. Complementing, and reinforcing, these relatively simple and elegant theories are the methods of multidimensional demography, which for Lutz are perhaps the most useful tools for demographers at the present time (building on past foundational developments in life table analysis and stable population theory). A middle section of the volume contains succinct treatments of empirical evidence on mortality decline and fertility decline, with education posited as the crucial driver of both declines. Lutz argues that the powerful effects of education can be attributed principally to changes in cognition, “on abstraction skills, or the degree of rationality in the choices that people make as well as the length of the planning horizon for conscious behavior . . . In other words, strengthening cognitive capacity“ (p. 93). Given the primacy accorded education as a driver of past demographic dynamics, likely future educational compositions of populations are central to the population forecasts presented in the final section of the volume. There is little in this volume that will be new to those who have followed Lutz's published work over the years, but the volume nevertheless serves a useful purpose as a compact compilation. For those not acquainted with Lutz's scholarship, this is a convenient, readable, and stimulating overview. —J.C.

近四年来，沃尔夫冈·卢茨 (Wolfgang Lutz) 对人口动态进行了开创性且极具影响力的研究。他关注的是低收入和高收入社会以及转型前和转型后社会的人口结构。他大胆地解决了预测未来人口趋势的问题。在这本书中，他几十年来的许多主要贡献都汇集在一个连贯而简洁的包中。尽管有本书的标题，但这远不是对人口学学科的介绍——尽管考虑到该卷的相对简洁，关键主题和概念的覆盖面令人印象深刻——而更像是对迄今为止的学术工作的概要这位充满活力和挑衅性的学者。对于路兹来说，人口学最有价值的贡献是人口水平，而对微观基础的调查只有在揭示总体水平的动态时才真正有价值。他坚持认为，人口学拥有促进我们对人类社会理解的独特理论，他确定并详细解释了三种这样的理论：人口代谢、人口转变和人口红利。补充和强化这些相对简单和优雅的理论是多维人口统计学的方法，对于 Lutz 来说，这可能是目前人口统计学家最有用的工具（建立在生命表分析和稳定人口理论的过去基础发展的基础上）。该卷的中间部分包含对死亡率下降和生育率下降的经验证据的简洁处理，教育被认为是这两种下降的关键驱动因素。卢茨认为，教育的强大影响主要可归因于认知的变化，“抽象技能，或人们做出选择的合理程度以及有意识行为的规划范围的长度”。. . 换句话说，加强认知能力”（第 93 页）。鉴于教育作为过去人口动态的驱动因素，教育占首要地位，未来人口的教育构成可能是本卷最后部分中提出的人口预测的核心。对于那些多年来一直关注卢茨出版作品的人来说，这本书几乎没有什么新鲜之处，但是，该卷仍然作为紧凑的汇编提供了有用的目的。对于那些不熟悉 Lutz 的学术研究的人来说，这是一个方便、易读且令人振奋的概述。—JC