Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made

by Vaclav Smil

Arthur C. Clarke’s often cited (and highly perceptive) Third Law states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (Clarke 1962). The claim could be easily repurposed for describing the quality-of-life gains that have resulted from the two centuries, and in many cases from just one century or its fraction, of grand transitions. Typical longevities, levels of income, amenities of quotidian existence, incessant flows of energies, variety of food, ease and affordability of travel, surfeit of virtually cost-free information—all of these gains have been truly magical for two reasons. First, most of today’s indispensable enabling inputs (from ammonia synthesis to electricity generation) and resulting benefits (from antibiotics to refrigeration) did not even exist two centuries ago. Second, life expectancy aside, the gains for the 20th century have not entailed mere doubling or tripling of the early performance: their multiples have been typically at least one, more often two or three orders of magnitude, improvements whose extent cannot be easily conceptualized and that, in retrospect, appear truly magical.