PDF should come with this book...

Great book BUT where is the pdf for all the charts and numbers mentioned? (which is the key info to understanding the context)

Please improve this!

21 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Needs PDF for figures

Quite tough, narrator sounds like a computer. He refers to figures but PDF is not available. This would greatly increase its value

12 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Not for an ordinary/lay reader!!!

This book is 100% for academics. It is a continuous, monotonous, never-ending recital of economic and statistical formulae that cannot be of interest to any ordinary listener. Even for an academic, there are so many formulae and statistics rattled off that it's impossible to absorb 99% of it. If the subject of the book and the review interests you, buy the hard copy. Don't, under any circumstances by the audio!

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Unmatched detail and analysis

Growth covers such a broad subject matter to make the book have something for everyone interested in how the world works. Chapters on society, economics and the future were most meaningful to me.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Informative and somewhat frightening

At times felt like an overload of information and stats but ultimately I enjoyed how it paints the picture of the danger of our unconstrained consumption and growth on the planet and to ourselves as a species.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Excellent book; condescending narrator

Enlightening, data-rich book with excellent foundations in engineering and history, like Smil's other works.
Must read for those in the arts and social studies (especially economics).
Only negative is the Narrator; he oozes condescension and detracts from the book.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

fascinating

it's long so I listened at 1.5 speed but still took a long time to get through. important insights into growth of everything and implications for how we think about out future

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Need accustomizing

Narration seems to progress in staccato fashion. I listen at x1. 3 to try to smooth over the minute pauses

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

great book missing PDF in Audible

the usual accompaniing PDF is missing. great performance and content otherwise. Vaclav is a fantastic author

Didn't bring all topics together effectively

The book is quite informative about the mechanisms for growth of different organisms and technologies. However, it didn't do a good enough job of linking the disparate subjects to the conclusion. For example, I don't see the connection between the historical growth in the power of turbines or in the length of suspension bridges and the growth in world population or world gross domestic product.

It also breezes through the growth mechanisms of several systems in ways that only those with prior knowledge of those fields would follow. The issue is that so many topics were discussed, very few readers can be familiar with all of them.

Since I wasn't planning to read a textbook or technical paper, I didn't need the literature reviews in the book.

Prior reviewers complained about the accompanying pdf file not being available. I was therefore surprised that it still wasn't available while I was listening. The book also referred to the death toll from a pandemic in Hamilton, Ontario in 2018. I believe the author meant 1918. These lapses should be corrected.

I suggest more significant breaks between chapters, so the listener knows she is moving to the next chapter. Stating "Chapter X" at the beginning of each chapter is one way to do this.