Reviews the evidence on early-industrial height cycles and shows why the economic transition put downward pressure on the nutritional status of the European and American populations.

Abstract: Examines the Physical Stature of The elite students attending the École Polytechnique military academy in the Early Nineteenth century. Concludes that their height was some 7 cm greater than that of average French youth their age.

Examines the height of students who attended The Citadel, the military academy in Charleston in the late-19th and the first half of the 20th century. Shows a long stagnation in the biological standard of living in this part of the South until the 1910s, when it began to increase substantially.

Examines the Physical Stature of The elite students attending the École Polytechnique military academy in the Early Nineteenth century. Concludes that their height was some 7 cm greater than that of average French youth their age.

Examines the height of Georgian convicts and concludes that their height declined beginning with the birth cohorts of 1835. The economic transition brought about a decline in their nutritional status.

Corrects some of the statistical mistakes of previous studies of the trend in the height of British soldiers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Finds that heights decreased substantially in the late-18th century in keeping with many other findings. The inference is that an incipient Malthusian...