Books like Making the Modern World by Vaclav Smil

A sweeping examination of how every human activity, from foraging to modern industry, depends on energy and how shifts in energy sources have shaped societies across history.

Vaclav Smil explores the fundamental science of energy, its role in Earth’s evolution, human physiology, and climate change, offering clear insights into how our everyday choices impact global warming and sustainability.

The period between 1867 and 1914 remains the greatest watershed in human history since the emergence of settled agricultural societies: the time when an expansive civilization based on synergy of fuels, science, and technical innovation was born. At its beginnings in the 1870s were dynamite,the telephone, photographic film, and the first light bulbs. Its peak decade - the astonishing 1880s - brought electricity - generating plants, electric motors, steam turbines, the gramophone, cars, aluminum production, air-filled rubber tires, and prestressed concrete. And its post-1900 period sawthe first airplanes, tractors, radio signals and plastics, neon lights and assembly line production. This book is a systematic interdisciplinary account of the history of this outpouring of European and American intellect and of its truly epochal consequences....