Numbers Don't Lie cover art

Numbers Don't Lie

71 Things You Need to Know About the World

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Numbers Don't Lie

By: Vaclav Smil
Narrated by: Stephen Perring
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Is flying dangerous? How much do the world's cows weigh? And what makes people happy?

From earth's nations and inhabitants, through the fuels and foods that energise them, to the transportation and inventions of our modern world - and how all of this affects the planet itself - in Numbers Don't Lie, Professor Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge lazy thinking.

Packed with 'well-I-never-knew-that' information and with fascinating and unusual examples throughout, we find out how many people it took to build the Great Pyramid, that vaccination yields the best return on investment and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). There's a wonderful mix of science, history and wit, all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics.

Urgent and essential, Numbers Don't Lie inspires listeners to interrogate what they take to be true in these significant times. Smil is on a mission to make facts matter, because after all, numbers may not lie, but which truth do they convey?

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Vaclav Smil (P)2020 Penguin Audio Environment Science Thought-Provoking

Critic Reviews

"There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil." (Bill Gates)
All stars
Most relevant  
great number baked insights into a complex world and our place in it. I am glad I listened

Broad numbers for a complex world

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section on energy particularly great, and the review of the age of innovation very well done! I will listen to it again.

fascinating

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"Numbers" is probably too broad a topic for a book to feel comprehensive, but even so, these chapters seem to have little to do with one another. They also appear in an odd order - the chapter which rails against the concept of GDP appears long before the chapter which explains what GDP is, for example. The book is best viewed as a collection of essays, each of which is interesting but seems to stop before reaching its point. Maddeningly, they often end with an intriguing question. The listener waits patiently, only to hear the next chapter start, and realise that the question was supposed to be rhetorical. It may work better in print, where you can see the chapter endings coming - and while the narrator is flawless, numbers are easier to comprehend when written down (the book refers over and over to the PDF download).

Each chapter ends just as it's getting interesting

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