Creating the 20th Century, Vol. 1

Interdisciplinary scholar Smil (U. of Manitoba) examines the roots of today's advanced technologies and finds them nestling in the technologically astounding period from the end of the Civil War to the First World War. He traces back the genealogy of electricity, the internal combustion engine, new materials and syntheses, communications and information, and finds that one reason why they have become so much a part of us is because most of that "stuff" has become more or less a mental commodity, an entitlement, and a part of being "regular folk" in society. He concentrates on the period that caused the greatest discontinuity of all, that which brought us to accept a fantasy such as instant communication as completely normal and completely necessary. Annotation © 2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba, and the author of 19 books, including Feeding the World (MIT Press, 2000), Enriching the Earth: Transformation of World Food Production (MIT Press 2001), and Energy at the Crossroads (MIT Press 2003).