The book Infrastructure, by Brian Hayes, seems similar to your description of Vaclav Smil's book. It's a big book filled with photos and explanations of various

The book Infrastructure, by Brian Hayes, seems similar to your description of Vaclav Smil's book. It's a big book filled with photos and explanations of various infrastructure (mines, factories, railroads, the electrical grid, waterworks and so on) that we keep seeing but don't quite understand what we see. It shows how much it really takes to keep the modern world functioning.