DAVID YEARSLEY is fascinated by the account of four composers who transformed their experiences of the second world war and the Holocaust into deeply moving works of art
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Growth by Vaclav Smil
Expansive exploration of the 'big picture,' from microorganisms to megacities
UP TO DATA: Vaclav Smil
PETER MASON thrills to the sound of south London-born Yussef Dayes, and the galaxy of musicians drawn into his orbit
From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together
JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems
Re-releases from Iain Matthews, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and The Charlie Daniels Band
JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems
IN HIS book How to Write a Thesis, academic, writer and philosopher Umberto Eco tells a story about a PhD student who proposes to write a thesis on “the symbol,” a joke example of an impossibly vague topic.
On the surface, academic Vaclav Smil appears to have plumped for a similarly vague topic, that of “growth,” immediately begging the question of what kind: economic, physical, biological?
The answer is all of them. Smil admits in his preface that covering all aspects of growth is impossible, so he restricts himself merely to “life on Earth and on the accomplishments of human societies.”
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