Best-selling author Steven Johnson chatted with Randy Tobler recently about his new book Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer which focuses on the history and the science of the human lifespan.
Johnson quickly points out to Randy that it is not just that people are adding years to the end of their lives, but really they are adding to the beginning.
"Probably the biggest impact has been a reduction in childhood mortality," says Johnson. "So, for almost all of human history, wherever you were in the world, whether you were in an advanced society or, you know, were a hunter-gatherer somewhere. A little more than a third of your children would die before reaching adulthood."
The big progress in childhood mortality reductions has really only happened in the last hundred years or so in places like the US, says Johnson. But he tells Randy that in the mid-1800s the death rate for young children was incredibly high.
"In 1850, in New York City, 60-percent of all of the deaths registered were young children. That's how bad it was," says Johnson. "It was just a terrible, non-stop tragedy that was happening. We've done so much to reduce that experience."
A companion piece to Johnson's book recently aired on PBS stations.
