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  • Numbers Don't Lie

  • 71 Things You Need to Know About the World
  • Written by: Vaclav Smil
  • Narrated by: Stephen Perring
  • Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (56 ratings)

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Numbers Don't Lie cover art

Numbers Don't Lie

Written by: Vaclav Smil
Narrated by: Stephen Perring
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Publisher's Summary

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

Critic Reviews

"There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil." (Bill Gates)

What listeners say about Numbers Don't Lie

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  • 25-08-21

Fascinating story with numbers.

the author has touched almost every aspect of life and material using numbers and conducted vast comparisons of how the scale of each of the quantity matter.
loved it. will need to listen again few chapters.
one small annoyance is about the audiobook reader's voice intonations that went so much down several times that if you are in traffic you have to keep adjusting the volume.

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Very informative

This book manages to present some critical topics via a few but important numbers, making it easy to understand the big picture about the past and future of those trends. Highly recommend!

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