Science & Math
Mathematics
![Vaclav Smil - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_vaclav_smil.jpg)
How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author."-Bill Gates
"How the World Really Works represents the highly readable distillation of this lifetime of scholarship… Mr. Smil looks over the horizon of the future with humility and calmness, foreseeing 'a mixture of progress and setbacks, of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and near-miraculous advances.'"-Wall Street Journal
An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible-a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish.
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-the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020-and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions.
Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future.
"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author."-Bill Gates
"How the World Really Works represents the highly readable distillation of this lifetime of scholarship… Mr. Smil looks over the horizon of the future with humility and calmness, foreseeing 'a mixture of progress and setbacks, of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and near-miraculous advances.'"-Wall Street Journal
An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible-a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish.
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-the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020-and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions.
Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future.
Editorial Reviews
"[It is] reassuring to read an author so impervious to rhetorical fashion and so eager to champion uncertainty. . . Smil's book is at its essence a plea for agnosticism, and, believe it or not, humility - the rarest earth metal of all. His most valuable declarations concern the impossibility of acting with perfect foresight. Living with uncertainty, after all, "remains the essence of the human condition." Even under the most optimistic scenario, the future will not resemble the past. "-The New York Times
"How the World Really Works represents the highly readable distillation of this lifetime of scholarship… Mr. Smil looks over the horizon of the future with humility and calmness, foreseeing 'a mixture of progress and setbacks, of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and near-miraculous advances.'"-Wall Street Journal
"The renowned energy scientist … aims to [recenter] materials rather than electronic flows of data as the bedrock of modern life - largely through examining what he calls the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics and ammonia." -The New York Times Magazine
"A scientific panorama of our well-being and how it can be sustained in our current tumultuous times and beyond. [Smil] aims to combat the widespread "comprehension deficit" about basic scientific facts, and he seeks to "explain some of the most fundamental ruling realities governing our survival and our prosperity." That aim is marvelously achieved…[this is] an exceptionally lucid, evenhanded study of the scientific basis of our current and future lives."-Kirkus, STARRED review
"How the World Really Works represents the highly readable distillation of this lifetime of scholarship… Mr. Smil looks over the horizon of the future with humility and calmness, foreseeing 'a mixture of progress and setbacks, of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and near-miraculous advances.'"-Wall Street Journal
"The renowned energy scientist … aims to [recenter] materials rather than electronic flows of data as the bedrock of modern life - largely through examining what he calls the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics and ammonia." -The New York Times Magazine
"A scientific panorama of our well-being and how it can be sustained in our current tumultuous times and beyond. [Smil] aims to combat the widespread "comprehension deficit" about basic scientific facts, and he seeks to "explain some of the most fundamental ruling realities governing our survival and our prosperity." That aim is marvelously achieved…[this is] an exceptionally lucid, evenhanded study of the scientific basis of our current and future lives."-Kirkus, STARRED review
Readers Top Reviews
Mr. G. LawrenceN. P.
Hard to mark this. It contains loads of important information and, thank heavens, it's not ideologically slanted and is gloriously intelligent. But my God it's a hard read, with some absolute litanies of tedious facts and numbers. It's certainly a bit of a slap in the face for the naive idealists who imagine that we are on the verge of this gloriously green international culture and that loads of things will be "solved" by 2040 or that we will be "doomed" by then, when neither is the case in fact, if you look at enough things rationally. Ever looked at, and inside, a hospital, which is a monument to steel and cement and plastics? Think we are close to replacing any of those items? The world uses billions of tons of them every year, and it's impossible to extract/supply/manufacture these things without fossil fuels, using existing technological and scientific knowledge. Yes, humans cope with problems, and measures are constantly being invented and worked on. But there ain't any magic wands, and the pronouncements of, say, Greta Thunberg, as well-intentioned as she was, will not turn her into the Dark Angel of the Apocalypse. She will, I hope, still be here in twenty years' time, but armed with a lot more facts to engage her intelligence - as well as with what has been possible, and impossible, in twenty years of progress.
Mr. Adrian Mcmenamin
Top line: a highly recommended read. Smil's mission is to tell us that hopes of a rapid and easy transition into a "net-zero" future or a world where AI has solved all our problems are pipe dreams, and in this he is a complete success. It's all a salutory reminder that the physical - and not the virtual - world is what really matters and that the material changes of the last 20 years are enormous and not something that can be rolled back quickly and easily. Happily Smil is not some climate-change denying crank, so we are definitely in a discourse about why change needs to happen as well as how difficult it is. But I also think he is maybe too pessimistic: the very scale and scope of China's economic transformation in the last 40 years - which Smil correctly describes as fundamental for all humanity - shows that human will and determination can achieve great things. Maybe not to the arbitrary targets of a "year ending in 5 or 0" but that is not a reason not to try - and sometimes this book does read as though he thinks it might all be a bit hopeless - certainly some of its readers are going to quote it as though he is making that argument. In other ways the book feels like it is using excuses to avoid facing up to bad news. Yes, models are never likely to be anything close to perfect predictors of the future, but why are they cited with approval when it comes to estimating how much of certain future resources are available (when it suits Smil's argument) but (sometimes mockingly) dismissed when it comes to the impact of climate change? Facing up to hard reality also means facing up to the unavoidable damage that is yet to come. The chapter on risk is very interesting but feels oddly out of place in the book's narrative. Something the author wanted to get off his chest in the middle of the pandemic? All in all I do strongly recommend this book, but nullius in verba.
Kindle Fernando Spa
The text is disjointed, sometimes duplicating content and sometimes missing content. This is terrible and I haven't even finished the intro.
Drjackl
I’ve read all of Smil’s books and this IMHO is his best yet. He shows just how dependent we are on fossil fuels and hydrocarbons in general for everything from transportation, electricity, food production , manufacturing and a vast array of other uses. He also presents some honest assessments of the likelihood that the net zero goals espoused by politicians and environmentalists are pipe dreams. Good chapters on risk, food, globalization and forecasting. Well worth the read.
