Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834) was an English economist. His most famous essay is his "Principle of Population" (1798), I which he theorized that wars and disease would kill off extra population. However, due to improved methods of agriculture, his predictions failed to come true in the 1800's. Recently, the study of Malthus has been taken up again because of the rapid population growth in underdeveloped countries.