In this accessible and wide-ranging book, Vaclav Smil uses 71 data-rich short chapters to unpack surprising, counter-intuitive truths about our modern world — from how many people built the Great Pyramid, to how much the world’s cows weigh, to why vaccination yields a high return on investment and electric cars might not be the panacea we hope for. He argues that numbers themselves don’t lie, but they always require context and interpretation