Listen free for 30 days
-
Energy and Civilization
- A History
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $33.40
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
You may also enjoy...
-
How the World Really Works
- The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Stephen Perring
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check—because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.
-
-
How the World Really Works [For Oligarchs]
- By CoreDev on 2024-04-14
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
Power Density
- A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this book, Vaclav Smil argues that power density is a key determinant of the nature and dynamics of energy systems. Any understanding of complex energy systems must rely on quantitative measures of many fundamental variables. Power density—the rate of energy flux per unit of area—is an important but largely overlooked measure. Smil provides the first systematic, quantitative appraisal of power density, offering detailed reviews of the power densities of renewable energy flows, fossil fuels, thermal electricity generation, and all common energy uses.
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
Numbers Don't Lie
- 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Ben Prendergast
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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?
-
-
It Helps To Understand Numbers
- By Anonymous User on 2023-03-03
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
Grand Transitions
- How the Modern World Was Made
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 - that have transformed the way we live.
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
The Origins of Totalitarianism
- Written by: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 23 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This classic, definitive account of totalitarianism traces the emergence of modern racism as an "ideological weapon for imperialism", beginning with the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 19th century and continuing through the New Imperialism period from 1884 to World War I.
-
-
A prescient warning for the 21st Century
- By Robert Hoople on 2022-01-28
Written by: Hannah Arendt
-
Europe
- A History
- Written by: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 61 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Norman Davies captures it all - the rise and fall of Rome, the sweeping invasions of Alaric and Atilla, the Norman Conquests, the Papal struggles for power, the Renaissance and the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Europe's rise to become the powerhouse of the world, and its eclipse in our own century, following two devastating World Wars.
-
-
Generally good...
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-02-06
Written by: Norman Davies
-
How the World Really Works
- The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Stephen Perring
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check—because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.
-
-
How the World Really Works [For Oligarchs]
- By CoreDev on 2024-04-14
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
Power Density
- A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this book, Vaclav Smil argues that power density is a key determinant of the nature and dynamics of energy systems. Any understanding of complex energy systems must rely on quantitative measures of many fundamental variables. Power density—the rate of energy flux per unit of area—is an important but largely overlooked measure. Smil provides the first systematic, quantitative appraisal of power density, offering detailed reviews of the power densities of renewable energy flows, fossil fuels, thermal electricity generation, and all common energy uses.
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
Numbers Don't Lie
- 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Ben Prendergast
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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?
-
-
It Helps To Understand Numbers
- By Anonymous User on 2023-03-03
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
Grand Transitions
- How the Modern World Was Made
- Written by: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 - that have transformed the way we live.
Written by: Vaclav Smil
-
The Origins of Totalitarianism
- Written by: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 23 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This classic, definitive account of totalitarianism traces the emergence of modern racism as an "ideological weapon for imperialism", beginning with the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 19th century and continuing through the New Imperialism period from 1884 to World War I.
-
-
A prescient warning for the 21st Century
- By Robert Hoople on 2022-01-28
Written by: Hannah Arendt
-
Europe
- A History
- Written by: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 61 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Norman Davies captures it all - the rise and fall of Rome, the sweeping invasions of Alaric and Atilla, the Norman Conquests, the Papal struggles for power, the Renaissance and the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Europe's rise to become the powerhouse of the world, and its eclipse in our own century, following two devastating World Wars.
-
-
Generally good...
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-02-06
Written by: Norman Davies
-
The First World War
- A Complete History
- Written by: Martin Gilbert
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 33 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would officially end nearly five years later. Unofficially, however, it has never ended: Many of the horrors we live with today are rooted in the First World War. The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also saw the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare.
-
-
good book
- By Matthew laing on 2021-07-25
Written by: Martin Gilbert
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- Written by: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
-
-
Interesting but heavy
- By Sohaib Shahid on 2021-01-01
Written by: David Graeber
-
Salt
- A World History
- Written by: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
So much of our human body is made up of salt that we'd be dead without it. The fine balance of nature, the trade of salt as a currency of many nations and empires, the theme of a popular Shakespearean play... Salt is best selling author Mark Kurlansky's story of the only rock we eat.
-
-
A very salty history
- By Ron Smallwood on 2021-02-11
Written by: Mark Kurlansky
-
The Human Tide
- How Population Shaped the Modern World
- Written by: Paul Morland
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The rise and fall of the British Empire; the emergence of America as a superpower; the ebb and flow of global challenges from Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Soviet Russia. These are the headlines of history, but they cannot be properly grasped without understanding the role that population has played. The Human Tide shows how periods of rapid population transition - a phenomenon that first emerged in the British Isles but gradually spread across the globe - shaped the course of world history.
Written by: Paul Morland
-
The Fiat Standard
- The Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization
- Written by: Saifedean Ammous
- Narrated by: Saifedean Ammous, Guy Swann
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Fiat Standard, world-renowned economist Saifedean Ammous applies his unique analytical lens to the fiat monetary system, explaining it as a feat of engineering and technology just as he did for bitcoin in his global best seller The Bitcoin Standard. This time, Ammous delves into the world's earlier shift from the gold standard to today's system of government-backed fiat money—outlining the fiat standard's purposes and failures; deriving the wider economic, political, and social implications of its use; and examining how bitcoin will affect it over time.
-
-
Fiat whatever
- By Jerome on 2022-12-04
Written by: Saifedean Ammous
-
Capitalism in America
- A History
- Written by: Alan Greenspan, Adrian Wooldridge
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen.
Written by: Alan Greenspan, and others
-
The Rise and Fall of American Growth
- The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War
- Written by: Robert J. Gordon
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 30 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from 45 to 72 years. The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era.
-
-
Not the best
- By Robert Hoskins on 2023-11-01
Written by: Robert J. Gordon
-
Capital: Volume 1
- A Critique of Political Economy
- Written by: Karl Marx, Samuel Moore - translation, Edward Aveling - translation
- Narrated by: Derek Le Page
- Length: 43 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It can be said of very few books that the world was changed as a result of its publication - but this is certainly the case of Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx (1818-1883). Volume 1 appeared (in German) in 1867, and the two subsequent volumes appeared at later dates after the author's death - completed from extensive notes left by Marx himself.
Written by: Karl Marx, and others
-
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- Written by: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 43 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world’s most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through 34 nations and 60 years of political and cultural change—all in one integrated, enthralling narrative.
-
-
Good content; terrible narrator
- By Daly Close on 2020-01-30
Written by: Tony Judt
-
Understanding Power
- The Indispensable Chomsky
- Written by: Noam Chomsky, John Schoeffel - editor, Peter R. Mitchell - editor
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" ( The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.
-
-
Truly essential Chomsky
- By Dustin Lawtey on 2018-09-14
Written by: Noam Chomsky, and others
-
Empire
- Written by: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's age of empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English language, and the institutions of representative government - all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the 17th century until the mid-20th. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity.
-
-
great education on British colonialism
- By daniel Froese on 2023-02-03
Written by: Niall Ferguson
-
The Guns of August
- Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
-
-
Couldn’t finish it
- By Boscotti_M on 2023-11-06
Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
Publisher's Summary
Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows-ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity - for their civilized existence.
In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts - from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering listeners a magisterial overview.
More from the same
What listeners say about Energy and Civilization
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Mark
- 2019-04-10
excellent delivery of a complex subject
Well written and well organized. Provides a realistic prospective of the actual flows of energy from our early beginnings to today. The closing is especially insightful. Well done.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Claude, Calgary
- 2019-04-05
How much power does a horse produce?
Compare to a man? Compare to a 1000 men? Or a loader? How much energy do they consume and how big of a field do I need to seed to feed them. How much energy would that take. How much CO2 they produce? Everything energy since the beginning to today, a wealth of knowledge in today's number one topic. Be informed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M. Yakiwchuk
- 2023-04-10
Well worth reading and arguing over
First and foremost, Energy and Civilization is a book about facts. It chronicles and calculates the various forms of energy used throughout human history and provides much useful information in understanding where we started as a species and how we got to where we are today. That is the book’s great strength and why I would recommend it to others.
Where I disagree with the author is on his basic worldview of what is desirable and undesirable and what humanity should do going forward as regards energy, particularly power generation and supplying energy for the great masses who live in urban environments. I also found one of this book’s shortcomings to be how certain information is presented. For example, he references solar, wind, and fossil fuel Government subsidies and lists total subsidy amounts of each for various periods. Fair enough. But to truly understand these subsidies and their usefulness, we must know the subsidized amount per unit of energy produced, which happens to be much higher for wind and solar than for fossil fuels, even after 50 years of Government subsidies. Also, the low energy density, intermittent nature, and high cost of wind and solar are mentioned only briefly, while still insisting they are the “renewables” of the future. Smil also does not dwell long on the massive energy and material inputs needed to generate these costly and unreliable forms of energy and their limited potential to mainly electrical energy (only 20% of total energy use, whereas fossil fuels and nuclear can be used to all energy uses AND fossil fuels produce many derivative products including synthetic fertilizers, which sustain the lives of at least 3 billion people despite representing only 1% of fossil fuels used today).
Whether you agree or disagree with the author, you can’t get away from the great strength of this book, which is its large assortment of useful facts. I recommend reading this author along with Robert Bryce and Alex Epstein to hear the various competing arguments drawn from many of the same basic facts. 4/5
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matthew
- 2023-04-11
A Must Read
A deep & detailed analysis; as a global citizen, investor/speculator, this book is a must.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!