Today we use far fewer materials than we once did to get the same things done—a phenomenon known as “dematerialization.” But, paradoxically, this efficiency seems to drive up overall consumption. In Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization, a deeply researched statistical profile of global material use, author Vaclav Smil lays out just how much stuff we need to live modern lives.
A version of this article appeared in the March 2015 issue of Harvard Business Review.