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How the World Really Works
Vaclav Smil reveals the immense, often invisible physical systems of energy, materials, and food that truly underpin our modern world, challenging our assumptions about progress and sustainability.
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“Vaclav Smil reveals the immense, often invisible physical systems of energy, materials, and food that truly underpin our modern world, challenging our assumptions about progress and sustainability.”
— Vaclav Smil, How the World Really Works
Global Systems, Energy, Resources, Civilization
If you often feel a disconnect between technological hype and the physical realities that underpin our world a grounded, essential perspective, and this will help you see what to do next.
Vaclav Smil is a polymath scientist whose rigorous, data-driven analysis of energy, food, and material systems consistently cuts through wishful thinking to reveal the fundamental physical realities shaping our civilization.