Numbers Dont Lie, Vaclav Smil
Numbers Dont Lie, Vaclav Smil
4 Rating(s)
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Numbers Don't Lie
71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World

Author: Vaclav Smil

Narrator: Ben Prendergast

Unabridged: 6 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 05/04/2021

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

"There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil."--Bill Gates

An essential guide to understanding how numbers reveal the true state of our world--exploring a wide range of topics including energy, the environment, technology, transportation, and food production.

Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy?

From data about our societies and populations, through measures of the fuels and foods that energize them, to the impact of transportation and inventions of our modern world--and how all of this affects the planet itself--in Numbers Don't Lie, Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics to challenge conventional thinking. Packed with fascinating information and memorable examples, Numbers Don't Lie reveals how the US is leading a rising worldwide trend in chicken consumption, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). Urgent and essential, with a mix of science, history, and wit--all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics--Numbers Don't Lie inspires readers to interrogate what they take to be true.

About The Author

Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of over forty books including How the World Really Works covering topics including energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk asssessment, and public policy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Member of the Order of Canada.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David on March 10, 2021

Numbers Don’t Lie is an absolute delight for a reader like me. Vaclav Smil takes an engineer’s approach to dozens of everyday issues and shows how they work – or don’t – by the numbers. If we looked at more things this way, we would be dramatically better off. The book is a collection of very short a......more

Goodreads review by Andrej on December 24, 2021

A quick read whirlwind tour of a number of topics, at a pace of only about 2-3 pages per topic. Some fun notes and examples: - 75% of all births between 2020 - 2070 will be in Africa - vaccinations have an extraordinarily high benefit-cost ratio, an approx. ~44X return on investment - estimated heritab......more

Goodreads review by Simon on December 27, 2020

Finally gave up on this. It's just a series of rants. The most pessimistic, cynical and grouchy book I've read. Yes, there are facts, though mostly lacking reference and explanation, but they're often fairly common knowledge. There's a lot of contradiction too. I gave up after the chapter titled Bei......more

Goodreads review by podczytany on September 25, 2022

Niesamowicie interesująca, pełna ciekawostek! Nie podobał mi się jedynie rozdział „PAŃSTWA”, ale to dlatego, że polityka to zupełnie nie moja działka. Ocena: 4,0.......more

Goodreads review by Anushka on March 23, 2023

3.25/5 ★★★☆☆ It's not the book, it's me. I tend to find non-fics harder to finish and that's on me. Someone else might surely rate this book higher. I'll state my reasons here -- 𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚 : Non-fiction 𝙏𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙨 : Health, Nutrition, Happiness, Planet, Environment, Development, Technology, Globalization, Inno......more

Quotes

“The human mind soaks up the images and narratives conveyed by the press, but they are a highly nonrandom sample of reality: the lurid, the sudden, the photogenic. 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, author of Enlightenment Now

“[A] tidy, entertaining collection of brief inquiries into a host of hot-button topics… Throughout, Smil’s viewpoint is balanced, and each element of the text is fully backed by research as well as the author’s contagious curiosity. Even when examining dire circumstances, Smil keeps readers engaged. A fascinating book to be read straight through or consulted bit by bit.”—KIRKUS
 
“[Smil] presents a robust array of data, at times with devastating acuity.”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
 
“Within an eclectic topical range encompassing energy production, transportation, machines and devices, food production and consumption, and demography, Smil uses numbers to pin down the facts… in each essay, his literary and numeric clarity guarantees that readers will learn new facts and gain new perspectives.”—BOOKLIST

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