Most older people today are unaware that in their lifetimes the population of the planet has tripled and we have burned nearly 90% of all the fossil fuel ever consumed. Did the population boom cause the explosion in fossil fuel use or the other way around? Author Vaclav Smil gives some clues to the answer in his meticulously researched book Energy and Civilization: A History.

Using first principles Smil compares the energy available from manpower to horsepower, through to water power, steam p...