"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author."—Bill Gates
An indispensable analysis of how the world really produces and consumes its food—and a scientist's exploration of how we can successfully feed a growing population without killing the planet
We have never had to feed as many people as we do today. And yet, we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. As a result, in our economic, political, and everyday choices, we take for granted and fail to prioritize the thing that makes all our lives possible: food.
In this ambitious, myth-busting book, Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today: why are some of the world’s biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations? Why do we waste so much food and how can we solve that? Could the whole planet go vegan and be healthy? Should it? He explores the global history of food production to understand why we farm some animals and not others, why most of the world’s calories come from just a few foodstuffs, and how this might change in the future.
How to Feed the World is the data-based, rigorously researched guide that offers solutions to our broken global food system.
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Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of forty books, including Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses and Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing, both published by the MIT Press. In 2010 he was named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013 Bill Gates wrote on his website that “there is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.”
Joe Jameson trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He has narrated over a hundred audiobooks, including titles by Gillian Slovo, Bear Grylls, Malorie Blackman, and Susan Hill, as well as The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff. He also works extensively in theater and television.