Transforming the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations and Their Consequences

Smil surveys the many accomplishments and some of the failures of the last one hundred years with an eye to their origins in the pre WW1 era. He points to the future with uncertainty using as his model the failure of the past to predict the future. The only certainty is the changes that will follow us. It brings context to so much our oh so technical present!

This book and its precursor, Inventing the Twentieth Century, are perhaps the best general exposition of the technological realities of our modern civilisation.

Insightful.

A detailed and informed book but not what I was looking for