Numbers Do Not Lie. 71 Fact Important for Understanding Everything in the World

The Canadian scientist, ecologist, and political scientist Vaclav Smil is famous for his works on the relationship between energy, ecology, demography, and realpolitik, as well as his virtuoso ability to handle large arrays of statistical data.
This book, which so delighted Bill Gates, summarizes the most interesting materials that Smil writes for IEEE Spectrum magazine—one of the leading scientific-engineering publications in the world—and serves as a relevant guide for understanding the true state of affairs on our planet. It covers a wide range of topics related to people, entire nations and countries, energy and how we use it, technical innovations, as well as the machines and devices that shape modern civilization. Urgent and important, combining statistics and history, written with a sense of humor, this book compels us to question what we have regarded as the truth.
«My goal is not just to demonstrate that numbers do not lie, but also to reveal the meaning that lies behind them.» (Vaclav Smil)