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* THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * 'Another masterpiece from one of my favorite authors . . . If you want a brief but thorough education in numeric thinking about many of the fundamental forces that shape human life, this is the book to read. It's a tour de force' BILL GATES__________We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check - because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, making their complete and rapid elimination unlikely. Drawing on the latest science and tackling sources of misinformation head on - from Yuval Noah Harari to Noam Chomsky - ultimately Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead?__________'Very informative and eye-opening in many ways' HA-JOON CHANG, author of 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism 'If you are anxious about the future, and infuriated that we aren't doing enough about it, please read this book' PAUL COLLIER, author of The Future of Capitalism
How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
309 kr
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Creating and Transforming the Twentieth Century, Revised and Expanded
Technical Innovations and Their Lasting Impact
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
397 kr
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Creating and Transforming the Twentieth Century combines two of Vaclav Smil's seminal works in a revised and expanded edition. Creating the Twentieth Century explores the period between 1867 and 1914, a time of unparalleled innovation that laid the groundwork for modern civilization. It investigates the birth of an expansive society driven by the synergy of fuels, science, and technical innovation. Key inventions from this era include dynamite, the telephone, photographic film, and the first light bulbs in the 1870s, followed by electricity-generating plants, electric motors, steam turbines, and cars in the 1880s. The period of extraordinary discovery continues into the early 20th century with the advent of airplanes, tractors, radio signals, and plastics. Smil systematically examines four fundamental classes of innovations: the formation and standardization of electric systems, the rapid adoption of internal combustion engines, the surge in chemical syntheses and material substitutions, and the dawn of the information age. This interdisciplinary account highlights the epochal consequences of these advancements, leading to high-energy societies engaged in mass production aimed at improving living standards.Transforming the Twentieth Century investigates how these technical advances shaped the decades that followed. It examines how the 20th century differed from the preceding 100 years due to unprecedented combinations of technical progress. Smil discusses the remarkable pace and ambition of 20th-century advancements, which elevated industrial production to new heights and tackled previously insurmountable challenges. He addresses the themes of electricity, engines, materials, and information techniques, and critically examines the contradictory consequences of technological progress--including liberating simplicity versus overwhelming complexity, unprecedented affluence versus economic disparities, and increased security versus new fears. This new edition contains numerous updates to the original books and features a new preface and a final chapter examining key themes in light of major 21st-century events and publications. Now in a single volume, these classic texts remain central to Smil's acclaimed oeuvre, and their lessons are perennially fascinating.
197 kr
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Prepare to view the world through a new lens – SPEED – a groundbreaking exploration that challenges your perceptions of life’s driving force, from the internationally bestselling author'There is no author whose books I look forward to more' Bill Gates‘There is perhaps no other academic who paints pictures with numbers like Smil’ GuardianIn a world that feels like it’s moving faster than ever, Smil examines how our relentless pursuit of speed – in areas such as production, travel and communication – shapes not only our technological landscape but also our social and environmental realities. And through engaging anecdotes and striking statistics, Smil challenges the assumption that faster is always better.He invites readers to reconsider the implications of our collective obsession with speed, and its intricate relationship with nature and innovation. For example, he highlights the surprising fact that erosion can actually accelerate mountain growth, and he points out that the rapid adoption of mobile phones – achieving 90 per cent penetration in just nineteen years – reflects historical patterns of technological adoption, suggesting that our world may not be moving significantly faster than in the past.Whether exploring the tiny mites that can traverse 300 times their body length in a second or the societal impacts of high-frequency trading, Speed invites readers to engage in a more balanced conversation about the role of speed in our lives, in an age defined by haste.
126 kr
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'My favourite author has done it again. Numbers Don't Lie is by far his most accessible book to date, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about the world. I unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning' Bill GatesIs flying dangerous? How much do the world's cows weigh? And what makes people happy?From Earth's nations and inhabitants, through the fuels and foods that energize them, to the transportation and inventions of our modern world - and how all of this affects the planet itself - in Numbers Don't Lie, Professor Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge lazy thinking. Smil is on a mission to make facts matter, because after all, numbers may not lie, but which truth do they convey?'Smil's title says it all: to understand the world, you need to follow the trendlines, not the headlines. This is a compelling, fascinating, and most important, realistic portrait of the world and where it's going' Steven Pinker'The best book to read to better understand our world. It should be on every bookshelf!' Linda Yueh'There is perhaps no other academic who paints pictures with numbers like Smil' GuardianVaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of over forty books on topics including energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment and public policy. No other living scientist has had more books (on a wide variety of topics) reviewed in Nature. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, in 2010 he was named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. This is his first book for a more general readership.
346 kr
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From the New York Times bestselling author of How the World Really Works, a wide-ranging look at the most fundamental governing principle of our world: size, whose laws, limits, and peculiarities offer the key to understanding health, wealth, and even happiness
“No one writes about the great issues of our time with more rigor or erudition than Vaclav Smil.” — Elizabeth Kolbert
To answer the most important questions of our age, we must understand size. Neither bacteria nor empires are immune to its laws. Measuring it is challenging, especially where complex systems like economies are concerned, yet mastering it offers rich rewards: the rise of the West, for example, was a direct result of ever more accurate and standardized measurements.
Using the interdisciplinary approach that has won him a wide readership, Smil draws upon history, earth science, psychology, art, and more to offer fresh insight into some of our biggest challenges, including income inequality, the spread of infectious disease, and the uneven impacts of climate change. Size explains the regularities—and peculiarities—of the key processes shaping life (from microbes to whales), the Earth (from asteroids to volcanic eruptions), technical advances (from architecture to transportation), and societies and economies (from cities to wages). This book about the big and the small, and the relationship between them, answers the big and small questions of human existence:
What makes a human society too big? What about a human being?Which alternative energy sources have the best chance of scaling and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels?Why do tall people make more money?What makes a face beautiful? How about a cathedral?How can changing the size of your plates help you lose weight?The latest masterwork of “an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences” (Wired) Size is a mind-bending journey that turns the modern world on its head.
246 kr
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469 kr
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Although the last two generations have seen an enormous amount of attention paid to advances in electronics, the fact remains that high-income, high-energy societies could thrive without microchips, etc., but, by contrast, could not exist without steel. Because of the importance of this material to comtemporary civilization, a comprehensive resource is needed for metallurgists, non-metallurgists, and anyone with a background in environmental studies, industry, manufacturing, and history, seeking a broader understanding of the history of iron and steel and its current and future impact on society. Given its coverage of the history of iron and steel from its genesis to slow pre-industrial progress, revolutionary advances during the 19th century, magnification of 19th century advances during the past five generations, patterns of modern steel production, the ubiquitous uses of the material, potential substitutions, advances in relative dematerialization, and appraisal of steel's possible futures, Still the Iron Age: Iron and Steel in the Modern World by world-renowned author Vaclav Smil meets that need. Incorporates an interdisciplinary discussion of the history and evolution of the iron- and steel-making industry and its impact on the development of the modern world Serves as a valuable contribution because of its unique perspective that compares steel to technological advances in other materials, perceived to be important Discusses how we can manufacture smarter rather than deny demand Explores future opportunities and new efforts for sustainable development in the industry
395 kr
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What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization--in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics--which have transformed the way we live.Societies that have undergone all four transitions emerge into an era of radically different population dynamics, food surpluses (and waste), abundant energy use, and expanding economic opportunities. Simultaneously, in other parts of the world, hundreds of millions remain largely untouched by these developments.Through erudite storytelling, Vaclav Smil investigates the fascinating and complex interactions of these transitions. He argues that the moral imperative to share modernity's benefits has become more acute with increasing economic inequality, but addressing this imbalance would make it exceedingly difficult to implement the changes necessary for the long-term preservation of the environment. Thus, managing the fifth transition--environmental changes from natural-resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and global warming--will determine the success or eventual failure of the grand transitions that have made the world we live in today.
Creating the Twentieth Century
Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact
Inbunden, Engelska, 2005
664 kr
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The period between 1867 and 1914 remains the greatest watershed in human history since the emergence of settled agricultural societies: the time when an expansive civilization based on synergy of fuels, science, and technical innovation was born. At its beginnings in the 1870s were dynamite, the telephone, photographic film, and the first light bulbs. Its peak decade - the astonishing 1880s - brought electricity - generating plants, electric motors, steam turbines, the gramophone, cars, aluminum production, air-filled rubber tires, and prestressed concrete. And its post-1900 period saw the first airplanes, tractors, radio signals and plastics, neon lights and assembly line production. This book is a systematic interdisciplinary account of the history of this outpouring of European and American intellect and of its truly epochal consequences. It takes a close look at four fundamental classes of these epoch-making innovations: formation, diffusion, and standardization of electric systems; invention and rapid adoption of internal combustion engines; the unprecedented pace of new chemical syntheses and material substitutions; and the birth of a new information age. These chapters are followed by an evaluation of the lasting impact these advances had on the 20th century, that is, the creation of high-energy societies engaged in mass production aimed at improving standards of living.
Transforming the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations and Their Consequences
Inbunden, Engelska, 2006
881 kr
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This inquiry into the technical advances that shaped the 20th century follows the evolutions of all the principal innovations introduced before 1913 (as detailed in the first volume) as well as the origins and elaborations of all fundamental 20th century advances. The history of the 20th century is rooted in amazing technical advances of 1871-1913, but the century differs so remarkably from the preceding 100 years because of several unprecedented combinations. The 20th century had followed on the path defined during the half century preceding the beginning of World War I, but it has traveled along that path at a very different pace, with different ambitions and intents. The new century's developments elevated both the magnitudes of output and the spatial distribution of mass industrial production and to new and, in many ways, virtually incomparable levels. Twentieth century science and engineering conquered and perfected a number of fundamental challenges which remained unresolved before 1913, and which to many critics appeared insoluble. This book is organized in topical chapters dealing with electricity, engines, materials and syntheses, and information techniques. It concludes with an extended examination of contradictory consequences of our admirable technical progress by confronting the accomplishments and perils of systems that brought liberating simplicity as well as overwhelming complexity, that created unprecedented affluence and equally unprecedented economic gaps, that greatly increased both our security and fears as well as our understanding and ignorance, and that provided the means for greater protection of the biosphere while concurrently undermining some of the key biophysical foundations of life on Earth. Transforming the Twentieth Century will offer a wide-ranging interdisciplinary appreciation of the undeniable technical foundations of the modern world as well as a multitude of welcome and worrisome consequences of these developments. It will combine scientific rigor with accessible writing, thoroughly illustrated by a large number of appropriate images that will include historical photographs and revealing charts of long-term trends.
209 kr
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From one of the world's leading experts on the history of energy, a rigorous examination of the transitions that structure our modern world--and the environmental reckoning that will mark its success or failure.What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization--in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics--which have transformed the way we live.Societies that have undergone all four transitions emerge into an era of radically different population dynamics, food surpluses (and waste), abundant energy use, and expanding economic opportunities. Simultaneously, in other parts of the world, hundreds of millions remain largely untouched by these developments.Through erudite storytelling, Vaclav Smil investigates the fascinating and complex interactions of these transitions. He argues that the moral imperative to share modernity's benefits has become more acute with increasing economic inequality, but addressing this imbalance would make it exceedingly difficult to implement the changes necessary for the long-term preservation of the environment. Thus, managing the fifth transition--environmental changes from natural-resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and global warming--will determine the success or eventual failure of the grand transitions that have made the world we live in today.
227 kr
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197 kr
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Following his New York Times bestseller How the World Really Works, Vaclav Smil returns with a mind-opening exploration of how size defines life on Earth (and beyond) - from microbes to economies and the expanding universe To answer the most important questions of our age, and secure our future, we must understand size. Neither bacteria nor empires are immune to its laws. Measuring it is challenging, especially where complex systems like economies are concerned, yet mastering it offers rich rewards. Grounded in history and drawing on the latest science, with much recourse to art and classic literature, Size explains the regularities - and peculiarities - of the key processes shaping life (from microbes to whales), the Earth (from asteroids to volcanic eruptions), technical advances (from architecture to transportation), and societies and economies (from cities to wages). We learn, for example, the rules governing beauty, why a biosphere needs diversity, how to predict the size of a country, why bigger animals need proportionately less food and how a particular level of wealth inequality is inherent. Is bigger always better? Can something keep growing indefinitely, or be too big to fail? Vaclav Smil tackles this goliath subject and it is no exaggeration to say that this tour de force will change the way you look at absolutely everything. 'There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil' Bill Gates 'The nerd's nerd' Guardian
227 kr
‘How to Feed the World had a lot to teach me – and I’m sure it will teach you a lot, too. It challenges readers to think differently about a problem we thought we understood’ Bill Gates‘Concise and erudite . . . How to Feed the World is weighted with statistics, but there is something light and irresistible about the way Smil structures his argument and propels his narrative . . . The breadth of Smil’s knowledge is as impressive as the depth’ Talha Burki, LancetIn this ambitious, myth-busting book, leading scientist and internationally bestselling author Vaclav Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today:Why are some of the world’s biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations?Why is food waste a colossal 1,000kcal per person daily, and how can we solve that?Could we all go vegan and be healthy? Should we?How will we feed the ballooning population without killing the planet?How Food Really Works shows how we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. Ultimately, this data-based, rigorously researched guide explains how we will survive and thrive long into the future.‘There is perhaps no other academic who paints pictures with numbers like Smil’ GUARDIAN
178 kr
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'There is no author whose books I look forward to more' BILL GATESIn this ambitious, myth-busting book, leading scientist and internationally bestselling author Vaclav Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today:Why are some of the world's biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations?Why is food waste a colossal 1,000kcal per person daily, and how can we solve that?Could we all go vegan and be healthy? Should we?How will we feed the ballooning population without killing the planet?How Food Really Works shows how we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. Ultimately, this data-based, rigorously researched guide explains how we will survive and thrive long into the future.'There is perhaps no other academic who paints pictures with numbers like Smil' GUARDIAN
126 kr
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'There is no author whose books I look forward to more' Bill GatesThe New York Times bestselling author returns with a mind-opening exploration of how size defines life on Earth.Explaining the key processes shaping size in nature, society and technology, Smil busts myths around proportions - from bodies to paintings and the so-called golden ratio - tells us what Jonathan Swift got wrong in Gulliver's Travels - the giant Brobdingnagian's legs would buckle under their enormous weight - and dives headfirst into the most contentious issue in ergonomics: the size of aeroplane seats.It is no exaggeration to say this fascinating and wide-ranging tour de force will change the way you look at absolutely everything.‘Vaclav Smil is a phenomenon with an appetite for facts over prejudice and fashion. Essential reading for anyone who cares about the future’ Lord Norman Foster
126 kr
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'There is no author whose books I look forward to more' Bill Gates'A fascinating deep dive...a wonderful fact-based tour of our food system, past and present. It opens up plenty of interesting debates on what to do next to feed 10 billion people without wrecking the planet' Hannah Ritchie, author of Not the End of the World In this ambitious, myth-busting book, leading scientist and internationally bestselling author Vaclav Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today: Why are some of the world’s biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations? Why is food waste a colossal 1,000kcal per person daily, and how can we solve that? Could we all go vegan and be healthy? Should we? How will we feed the ballooning population without killing the planet?How to Feed the World shows how we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. Ultimately, this data-based, rigorously researched guide explains how we will survive and thrive long into the future.
328 kr
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454 kr
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223 kr
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Prime Movers of Globalization
The History and Impact of Diesel Engines and Gas Turbines
Häftad, Engelska, 2013
426 kr
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177 kr
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476 kr
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191 kr
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359 kr
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225 kr
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A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization."I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years.—Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the YearEnergy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.
181 kr
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A systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations.Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Smil takes readers from bacterial invasions through animal metabolisms to megacities and the global economy. He begins with organisms whose mature sizes range from microscopic to enormous, looking at disease-causing microbes, the cultivation of staple crops, and human growth from infancy to adulthood. He examines the growth of energy conversions and man-made objects that enable economic activities—developments that have been essential to civilization. Finally, he looks at growth in complex systems, beginning with the growth of human populations and proceeding to the growth of cities. He considers the challenges of tracing the growth of empires and civilizations, explaining that we can chart the growth of organisms across individual and evolutionary time, but that the progress of societies and economies, not so linear, encompasses both decline and renewal. The trajectory of modern civilization, driven by competing imperatives of material growth and biospheric limits, Smil tells us, remains uncertain.
191 kr
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From the New York Times-bestselling author, a new volume on the history of human ingenuity and its attendant breakthroughs and busts. Included in BILL GATES's 2023 Holiday Reading List Included in Lit Hub s Most Anticipated Books of 2023 Included in The Next Big Idea Club s February 2023 Must-Read Books. 'Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception. Even when I disagree with him, I learn a lot from him...he always strengthens my thinking.' Bill Gates, Gates Notes. The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author a favorite of Bill Gates pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm. Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation, and looks not only at inventions that failed to dominate as promised (such as the airship, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight), but also at those that turned disastrous (leaded gasoline, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons). And finally, most importantly, he offers a 'wish list' of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century. Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.
561 kr
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