Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities
Written by Vaclav Smil
Narrated by Eric Jason Martin
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
Smil takes listeners 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.
Vaclav Smil
Vaclav Smil is active in interdisciplinary research in the fields of materials, energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment, and public policy. He has published 35 books and more than 400 papers on these topics. His research areas span throughout the sciences. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Science Academy), and a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2010 he was listed by Foreign Policy among the top 100 global thinkers. He was the first non-American to receive the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology. He has worked as a consultant for many US, EU and international institutions, has been an invited speaker in nearly 400 conferences and workshops in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa, and has lectured at many universities in North America, Europe and East Asia. Lastly, in 2013 he had the distinction having Bill Gates state that “There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil in an article that appeared in Wired.com.
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Reviews for Growth
25 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Provides framing on how growth happens within biological conext and social structure context.
Foundational book for any one interested in analysis of historical development of human civilization and especially those who are working on making current civilization more sustainable and equitable. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exhaustive and exhausting (especially the first half) but very illustrative of growth patterns. I'ts not just hockey sticks everywhere like Diamandis or Kurzweil would have you think.