Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
By: Vaclav Smil
4.06
Format: 384 pages, Hardcover
From one of the world's leading experts on the history of energy, a rigorous examination of the tra…
Want to Read $ 10.99If you liked the science plot in Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made by Vaclav Smil , here is a list of 12 books like this:
1. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
By: Kathryn Schulz
3.94
Format: 339 pages, Hardcover
In the tradition of The Wisdom of Crowds and Predictably Irrational comes Being Wrong, an illuminat… read more
Want to Read $ 13.49Similar categories in Kathryn Schulz's Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- nonfiction
- history
- sociology
- science
"both doubt and certainty are as contagious as the common cold"-Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
"Until we know we are wrong, being wrong feels exactly like being right"-Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
"knowledge is conventionally viewed as belief plus a bunch of credentials"-Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
"conversion stories are one of the classic Western narratives about the self."-Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
2. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life
By: Nick Lane
3.87
Format: 216 pages, Paperback
If it weren't for mitochondria, scientists argue, we'd all still be single-celled bacteria. Indeed,… read more
Want to ReadSimilar categories in Nick Lane's Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- nonfiction
- science
3. Metaphors We Live By
By: George Lakoff , Mark Johnson
2.65
Format: 34 pages, Paperback
The now-classic Metaphors We Live Bychanged our understanding of metaphor and its role in language … read more
Want to ReadSimilar categories in George Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
4. The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth
By: James Allen , Chris Zook
2.86
Format: 442 pages, Hardcover
A Washington PostBestseller Three Principles for Managing--and Avoiding--the Problems of Growth Why… read more
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5. Diplomacy
By: Henry Kissinger
4.07
Format: 112 pages, Paperback
A brilliant, sweeping history of diplomacy that includes personal stories from the noted former Sec… read more
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6. Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong
By: Paul A. Offit
3.21
Format: 192 pages,
What happens when ideas presented as science lead us in the wrong direction? History is filled with… read more
Want to ReadSimilar categories in Paul A. Offit's Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
7. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
By: Katherine Rundell
4.18
Format: 352 pages, Hardcover
From standout scholar Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite presents a sparkling and very modern biogra… read more
Want to Read $ 11.99Similar categories in Katherine Rundell's Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- nonfiction
- history
- audiobook
"To adore and to devour and to be devoured is its own kind of focus: a gasp of a different kind of oxygen."-Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
8. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
By: Robert M. Sapolsky
4.25
Format: 528 pages, Hardcover
One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the … read more
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- audiobook
- nonfiction
- sociology
- science
"I’m being diplomatic. Many readers will know of the “replication crisis"-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
"Obviously, imposing these classifications on determinism, free will, and moral responsibility is wildly simplified. A key simplification is pretending that most people have clean “yes"-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
"You cannot decide all the sensory stimuli in your environment, your hormone levels this morning, whether something traumatic happened to you in the past, the socioeconomic status of your parents, you…"-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
9. Quantum Supremacy
By: Michio Kaku
3.79
Format: 352 pages, Hardcover
An exhilarating tour of humanity's next great technological achievement—quantum computing—which may… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Michio Kaku's Quantum Supremacy book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- science
- history
- technology
- nonfiction
- audiobook
10. Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
By: Edmund Conway
4.52
Format: 512 pages, Hardcover
Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed… read more
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- science
- history
- politics
- nonfiction
- economics
- environment
- technology
"You can get anything you want from anywhere in the world at a bargain price, but don't [whatever you do] expect to understand how it was made or how it got to you."-Edmund Conway, Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
"Brothers and sisters,’ said the man. ‘I want to tell you this. The greatest thing on earth is to have the love of God in your heart, and the next greatest thing is to have electricity in your house.’…"-Edmund Conway, Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
"To say that concrete is everywhere is hardly an exaggeration. Despite the fact that we only began mass producing this mixture of sand, aggregates and cement just over a century ago, there are now mor…"-Edmund Conway, Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
"A few years ago some geologists sifted through the data [and] estimated that the amount of sand, soil and rock we humans mine and quarry and dredge each year is some 24 times greater than the amount …"-Edmund Conway, Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
11. Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
By: Chris Miller
4.44
Format: 464 pages, Hardcover
An epic account of the decades-long battle to control what has emerged as the world's most critical… read more
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- audiobook
- science
- history
- politics
- nonfiction
- economics
- technology
"Comrade, we have built the world’s biggest microprocessor!"-Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
12. Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter
By: Ben Goldfarb
4.29
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
Winner of the 2019 PEN/EO Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing In Eager, environmental jour… read more
Want to Read $ 13.49Similar categories in Ben Goldfarb's Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- science
- history
- nonfiction
- environment
- audiobook
"Pandemonium isn’t convenient, but often it’s more natural than stability."-Ben Goldfarb, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter
13. Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
By: Nick Lane
4.04
Format: 400 pages, Hardcover
What brings the Earth to life, and our own lives to an end? For decades, biology has been domina… read more
Want to Read $ 9.99Similar categories in Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- audiobook
- nonfiction
- history
- science
"Almost the only thing we know for sure about consciousness is that it is, so to speak, soluble in ether, chloroform and a variety of other solvents ..."-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
"Core metabolism has changed little in part because it was never powered down in its four-billion-year history. The genes are custodians of this flame, but without the flame life is – dead."-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
"Keen to progress the work on photosynthesis, Lawrence hired Melvin Calvin, a colleague from the Manhattan Project, immediately after the war. The story has it that on the day of the Japanese surrende…"-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
"Putting terms aside, we’ll see that the ancient biosynthetic Krebs cycle was fixing CO2 a billion years before rubisco and the evolution of photosynthesis in the cyanobacterial ancestors of plant chl…"-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
14. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma
By: Mustafa Suleyman
3.86
Format: 332 pages, Hardcover
A warning of the unprecedented risks that AI and other fast-developing technologies pose to global … read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Mustafa Suleyman's The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- audiobook
- science
- politics
- nonfiction
- sociology
- technology
15. The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
By: Peter Frankopan
3.94
Format: 736 pages, Hardcover
A revolutionary new history that reveals how climate change has dramatically shaped the development… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Peter Frankopan's The Earth Transformed: An Untold History book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- history
- politics
- nonfiction
- environment
- science
16. Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
By: David Christian
4.09
Format: 357 pages, Hardcover
** A 2018 GoodReads Choice Award Nominee in the History & Biography category** A captivating his… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in David Christian's Origin Story: A Big History of Everything book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- science
- history
- anthropology
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"Деякі види настільки зневажають мозок, що ставляться до нього, як до одноразової розкоші. В одного виду морських слимаків замолоду є якийсь невеликий мозок. Вони користуються ним, поки плавають по мо…"-David Christian, Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
"In the past two hundred years, human numbers grew to over seven billion, and our species began to transform the oceans, the land, and the air. Human-built roads, canals, and railways snaked across th…"-David Christian, Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
17. How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth
By: Mark Koyama
4.24
Format: 240 pages, Paperback
Most humans are significantly richer than their ancestors. Humanity gained nearly all of its wealth… read more
Want to Read $ 20.00Similar categories in Mark Koyama's How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- history
- politics
- nonfiction
- economics
- sociology
- audiobook
18. Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
By: Vaclav Smil
4.06
Format: 384 pages, Hardcover
From one of the world's leading experts on the history of energy, a rigorous examination of the tra… read more
Want to Read $ 10.99Similar categories in Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- audiobook
- science
- history
- politics
- anthropology
- nonfiction
- economics
- sociology
- environment
- technology
19. Autocracy, Inc.
By: Anne Applebaum
4.28
Format: 224 pages, Hardcover
All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man … read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Anne Applebaum's Autocracy, Inc. book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- politics
- history
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"Americans who rarely think about Russia would be stunned to learn how much time Russian state television devotes to America’s culture wars, especially arguments over gender. Putin himself has display…"-Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.
"Isolationism is an instinctive and even understandable reaction to the ugliness of the modern interconnected world. For some politicians in democracies, it will continue to offer a successful path to…"-Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.
"The temptation of what is sometimes called realism—the belief that nations are solely motivated by a struggle for power, that they have eternal interests and permanent geopolitical orientations—is as…"-Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.
20. A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class
By: Joe Nocera
4.36
Format: 464 pages, Paperback
Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America’s consumer credit boom, 1994’s wildly… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Joe Nocera's A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class book and Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
- nonfiction
- economics
- history
"As the number of credit card holders grew, and as inflation imposed its relentless logic, people began to gain a new awareness of the implications that came with certain credit card actions. In parti…"-Joe Nocera, A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class
"IRA funds became a form of play money for the middle class... Because the pool of capital that made up an IRA could not be withdrawn for twenty or thirty years, many people viewed their IRAs as conta…"-Joe Nocera, A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class
