《人、土地和糧食》（1963），《增加世界糧食產量》（1965），《變化的苗頭》（1970），《沒有疆界的世界》（1972），《為了人類的利益》（1974），《僅僅是麵包》（與他人合作，1974，獲克里斯托弗獎），《第二十九天》（1978，獲Ecologia Firenze獎），《憑空躍進（Running on Empty）》（與他人合作，1979），《建立可持續發展的社會》（1981），《人滿為患》（與他人合作，1994），《誰將供應中國糧食？》（1995）《面臨全球糧食短缺挑戰的艱難抉擇》（1996），《超越馬爾薩斯：人口挑戰的十九個方面》（與他人合作，1999）等。
The Washington Post called Lester Brown "one of the world's most influential thinkers." The Telegraph of Calcutta refers to him as "the guru of the environmental movement." In 1986, the Library of Congress requested his personal papers noting that his writings "have already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources."
Brown started his career as a farmer, growing tomatoes in southern New Jersey with his younger brother during high school and college. Shortly after earning a degree in agricultural science from Rutgers University in 1955, he spent six months living in rural India where he became intimately familiar with the food/population issue. In 1959 Brown joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service as an international agricultural analyst.
Brown earned masters degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Maryland and in public administration from Harvard. In 1964, he became an adviser to Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman on foreign agricultural policy. In 1966, the Secretary appointed him Administrator of the department's International Agricultural Development Service. In early 1969, he left government to help establish the Overseas Development Council.
In 1974, with support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Lester Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute, the first research institute devoted to the analysis of global environmental issues. While there he launched the Worldwatch Papers, the annual State of the World reports, World Watch magazine, a second annual entitled Vital Signs: The Trends That are Shaping Our Future, and the Environmental Alert book series.
Brown has authored or coauthored 49 books. One of the world's most widely published authors, his books have appeared in some 40 languages. Among his earlier books are Man, Land and Food, World Without Borders, and Building a Sustainable Society. His 1995 book Who Will Feed China? challenged the official view of China's food prospect, spawning hundreds of conferences and seminars.
In May 2001, he founded the Earth Policy Institute to provide a vision and a road map for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy. In November 2001, he published Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth, which was hailed by E.O. Wilson as "an instant classic." He followed this in 2003 with another path-breaking book, Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.
He is the recipient of many prizes and awards, including more than 20 honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, the 1987 United Nations' Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his "exceptional contributions to solving global environmental problems." In 2003, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Italy and appointed an honorary professor at the University of Shanghai.
