Product Description
One of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey -- into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer.
In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Amazon.com
From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though A Short History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and covers the same material as every science book before it, it reads something like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without a plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age of our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself." Bryson chats with experts like Richard Fortey (author of Life and Trilobite) and these interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's best and most embarrassing fights--Cope vs. Marsh, Conway Morris vs. Gould--that he finds literary gold. --Therese Littleton
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 Really Insightful
Great Book. Read it for the 3rd time this week. The Audio Book is also very good.
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 Very Interesting and Informative
Like I mentioned, this book is very interesting and informative. If you like to history and science this book is for you. I rated it a 4 because is not an easy read and so many facts after facts will sometimes out you to sleep. But if you are interested in the complete history of science and discovery then run out and get a copy NOW.
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Where were you when I needed you? ( pattaya2 )
I just wish that Bill had been my science teacher in Junior High. I was turned off by the boring old dude in suspenders and a pocket protector. He had bad breath and kept looking at the wall clock, clearly bored with himself as well. I love Bill's hilarious writing in his other books, "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" and "A Walk in the Woods.' This was quite a departure from his other books, but once you love an author, you take what you can get.
Thank you Bill, I now know from whence I came!
Dodie Cross, author of A Broad Abroad in Thailand
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Powerhouse of discovery ( carsoneb )
One of the most useful books I have read. In one, easily readable, volume Bryson explains everything from the big bang to nano technology and dozens of the great discoveries in between. Then to identify who developed an idea or product and who actually got credit is most instructive on making sure your own discovery gets timely review and credit. Perhaps some of the analogies to explain subjects are a bit fanciful but they actually add some lightness and fun to some very, heavy subjects.
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Uncredited watchmaker
Frustrating book full of interesting insights into the edges of scientific inquiry where every mystery screams "omniscient design"; the book never mentions God.
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