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How the World Really Works: Why We’re Wrong and How Science Can Set Us Straight Paperback – 7 October 2021

by Vaclav Smil (Author)

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We have never had so much information at our fingertips, and yet until recently we lived our hermetically-sealed lives at a distance from the complex realities of the physical world. But crises strip away the covers of obfuscation and misdirection to reveal truths. Any ideas of human supremacy were dashed by Covid-19; it was a stark reminder of our limited grasp on reality. If we are to successfully navigate our uncertain future, understanding the inner workings of our modern world is vital.

Professor Vaclav Smil is not a pessimist or an optimist, he is a scientist. Championing a rational fact-based approach - and on topics ranging from food production and nutrition, through energy and the environment, to globalization and the future - Smil shows, for example, how our food is inexorably linked to the massive combustion of fossil fuels, that globalization is much older than you think (but not inevitable), and why from horse riding to solar flares we consistently miscalculate risk.

Tackling sources of misinformation head on - from Yuval Noah Harari to Gwyneth Paltrow - he addresses the most consequential of all contemporary questions: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? He explains faults with both extremes. Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, How the World Really Works draws on half a century of Smil's own research and distils the ideas of his over forty books into one peerlessly authoritative yet accessible masterpiece.

Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publication date

7 October 2021
ISBN-10

0241454409
ISBN-13

978-0241454404
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Product description

Review

A compelling, fascinating, and most important, realistic portrait of the world and where it's going -- Steven Pinker, on Numbers Don’t Lie

About the Author

Vaclav 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.

Product details

Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0241454409
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0241454404

Best Sellers Rank: 1,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 2 in Weather
- 2 in Materials & Gases
- 3 in Botany & Plant Ecology

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172 ratings

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4.5 out of 5

172 global ratings

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2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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shitta

Received on time as ETA

Reviewed in Singapore 🇸🇬 on 27 December 2022

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Niiiiiceeee

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Hande Z

Not everything is smooth sailing

Reviewed in Singapore 🇸🇬 on 25 November 2022

For those who have not read Smil and wondering which book to start with this is the one. As he writes in the introduction, this book is ‘the product of my life’s work, and written for the layperson’. It is, again in his own words, ‘a continuation of my long-lasting quest to understand the basic realities of the biosphere, history, and the world we have created’.

The problem with our ability to understand many of the major problems today is that we tend to focus on the narrow, specific, and immediate problem – for example, the Russian-Ukrainian war. We might begin to look beyond border disputes, and the question as to whether the US had instigated the war, once we begin to see problems in the light of Smil’s book.

One of the many issues arising from the Russian-Ukrainian war is the supply and demand of energy. But what do we know about energy? This is one of the subjects Smil introduces us to in his chapter, understanding energy. From there, he makes a connection from energy to food. And next, he examines the materials such as plastics, steel, and concrete that have such massive impact on our lives. The jump in the use of plastics can be seen in the simple statistic that in 1925, the global production was only 20,000 tons. In 2021 it was 370 million tons.

Smil relates modern utilities and materials such as the smartphones to their historical roots (though ostensibly unconnected) such as the invention of the steam turbine in 1884. Smil has a chapter on environment to complete the matters that matter in our lives. It is an educational exploration in which he tells us not to worry too much about oxygen, but we should worry about water.

Parts of the book appear to be rushed, but overall, it is well-written, highly accessible without scientific or philosophic jargon.

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Muhil

Good work…Different perspectives

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 29 October 2022

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Meticulous work
I think this will be the summary of his all works… in layman language

2 people found this helpful

sameer

Informative and a must read book for all

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 8 September 2022

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A real eye opening book

2 people found this helpful

Nishant Sheth

Gives overview of Nearly everything.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 18 January 2023

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You would be fascinated on things you will know how it functions just by reading these 250 pages. Agriculture, Climate, Metals, Oil, Fossils, Engines and what not.

Pliny

The stark reality of rationalism

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 7 October 2022

Verified Purchase

Present rational helpful scenarios derived from what many people mostly know or should already know. A great provocative read.

Abhay Kulkarni

The cover of the book is crumpled. Such a let down before even one gets to start reading.

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