This chapter discusses the rhetorical construction of a crisis in Alva and Gunnar Myrdals’ book Crisis in the population question (1934). The purpose of the chapter is to situate the book in its historical and sociopolitical context in Sweden, to define what kind of crisis is at play and the role of this crisis in the argumentation. In the book, there is a double entendre in the term crisis, connoting both possible danger and opportunity for social and political change. Although the Myrdals’ book is a socio-economic study as well as a political treatise, the rhetorical construction of crisis makes use of literary devices, in particular by moving between different semantic registers. In this sense, the term crisis in itself becomes critical for determining the crisis of the population question.