This book gives the reader the background to consider the "Greenhouse Effect" and all its ramifications in a serious way. Very good reading and very thought provoking.

The Haber process is arguably the most significant development of the 20th century, yet it remains virtually unknown to the general public. There are a few chapters on the history and chemistry of this vital process, and they are reasonably well written. But the vast majority of the book is an endless litany of statistics, completely devoid of narrative structure. For example:

"In the United Kingdom more than half of all nitrogen fertilizer has been applied to grasslands. A Royal Society study found that in the late 1970s average applications on pastures surpassed the inputs to arable land (172 vs. 135 kg N/ha), and that synthetic compounds accounted for 57-63% of all inputs. The overall use of fertilizer nitrogen in the United Kingdom rose by almost 50% between the late 1970s and the mid 1980s, but it declined afterwards, and its average during the late 1990s has been only about 20% higher than a generation earlier, which means that the synthetic fertilizers supply between 65 and 70% of all nitrogen inputs. But high-yielding winter wheat -- the 1998 mean was 7.97 t/ha -- still receives more than 180 kg N/ha, double the amount applied in 1970 when the yield was around 4 t/ha, and the secular correlation between the rising applications of inorganic nitrogen and rising harvests is obvious (fig. 7.8)."

Now imagine 300 more pages of text just like that, and you get the idea. There is no *story* here, just data. It's a shame, because there is definitely a story to be told.

The material on the Haber process itself is better, but not great. In particular, the author can't seem to choose the level of the audience: descriptions of chemistry alternate between being too simplistic and assuming too much. Details essential to understanding often seemed to be missing, while details of no apparent relevance are in abundance. I don't really care whether the process takes place under 137 vs. 152 atmospheres; but I do care *why* the pressure is so critical, which is never explained.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. There *is* plenty of good material here, but you have to sort through a lot of empty statistics to get it, and the omission of key pieces of scientific explanation makes for a painfully frustrating read.

This is a great book for any one interested in the way the Haber-Bosch process of making Nitrogen fertilizer changed the world. Enriching the Earth provides in depth information on the history that led up to the discovery of the process of using N2 and H2 to make NH3. It also contains up to date information on the effects that all of this new nitrogen has on the earth.

The book can get a little technical at times, with chemical formulas and schematics of the instruments. While I found this information useful, some people might find it overwhelming. If you skip over the techincal parts, the book is very well written for the average person.

These little known scientists really changed the world as we know it. When you think about it, what has Einstein done for you lately? These guys put food on the table.

Smil's book is a "must read" for anyone interested in the world food problem. His most valuable contribution is his insistence, backed up with an unparalleled marshalling of facts, that the biggest hope in the short run lies in greater efficiency. By looking at the whole food cycle, from field to final end, he can show (correctly) that waste all along the line is costing us more than enough food to feed all the hungry AND many of the unborn. Water and fertilizer are lost in the field, grain goes to rats and weevils during storage, and so on down to the appalling plate waste in the US. Smil does not side with the catastrophists who project imminent famine (they have been wrong too often) nor with the cornucopians who see nothing but plenty ahead (he dismisses them with the tart comment that, ultimately, the earth would have to be all grain if food and population kept growing). He is, however, on the optimistic side, seeing existing and fairly easily-developed technology as quite adequate to feed the expected world population. There are some problems. First, he accepts the hopeful premise that world population will level off around 10 billion. In spite of the mantra-like repetition of this figure by aid agencies, it is probably too optimistic. China is barely managing to sustain its one-child policy, and population growth is still rapid in the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America; many countries show no sign of slowing. Second, he adopts the most optimistic possible figures or scenarios on soil erosion and some other variables. Desertification, for instance, he ascribes largely to natural climatic swings. This is not credible; there are far too many photographs, from around the world, of desertification that stops short at barbed-wire fences (which prevent overgrazing). On the other hand, he does not say much about minor and obscure crops, and still less about obscure cropping regimes and methods. Use of such technologies (found mostly among traditional peoples around the world) could vastly increase the productivity of world agriculture. One notes, going beyond this book, that some countries today are as badly off as the most pessimistic of catastrophists feared: Sudan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Mali, and many more. These are countries with weak and usually tyrannical governments, often torn by conflict. Conversely, some countries have done as well as the most cheery optimists could have hoped; these are mostly European countries with strong, democratic governments with high levels of accountability. In between, countries fall neatly into line along a continuum. China, Smil's and my main area of expertise, is in the stretch. Smil, arguing against Lester Brown, sees much hope for China. However, China's government is currently toward the weak and tyrannical end, making Lester Brown's gloomy predictions look more reasonable. China has a long history of saving itself at the last minute, and Smil may be right in the end. But China also has a long, long history of famine caused by inept governance. Anyway, the point is made, and I wish Smil had made it: Good government, not technology and not food waste, is the key. This being said, Smil's book is about the best out there at the present, and brings together a huge array of important facts, many of them otherwise almost impossible to find in the specialized literature. Anyone interested in world futures had better read it.

I recently bought this item after reading the review for this book. I found this to be a mistake. I am an engineer by trade, and I found myself reading old school books so I could understand what this book was talking about. This book covers a wide variety of information and is difficult to read. This is not a book for the layman.....

This is a fascinating book. It provides a comprehensive and integrated survey of the energies shaping our world. It is filled with diagrams, graphs, maps, drawings and photographs to support the text.

This book can't be described. It has to be experienced: energy production of the sun, global patterns of latent heat flux, a horse's suspensory and check ligaments that allow it to use hardly any additional energy for standing, preindustrial societies, cars and computers and much more.

Use this book for reference and for browsing. Spend an afternoon with a calculator and the figures listed in the tables in this book. You will begin to appreciate the complex relationships involving the energies that shape our world.