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.
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What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four 'grand transitions' of civilization-in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics-which have transformed the way we live. Societies that have undergone all... SEE MORE