Necessity’s Child

With his latest, Invention and Innovation, Vaclav Smil sets out to achieve what he describes as “modest goals.” He wants to remind us “that success is only one of the outcomes of our ceaseless quest for invention; that failure can follow initial acceptance; that the bold dreams of market dominance may remain unrealized; and that even after generations of (sometimes intensifying) efforts, we may not be any closer to the commercial applications first envisaged decades ago.”

Smil is famously reclusive, prolific, and influential. It is said that at the University of Manitoba, where the scientist and policy analyst spent his entire career, he attended a single faculty meeting, the agreed quid pro quo being that he remain intellectually productive. He has lived up to his part of the bargain by publishing over forty books, moving Bill Gates to write, “I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie.”

In an era of...