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A Short History of Nearly Everything | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Rating:  638 reviews
Sales Rank: 328
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 076790818X
Dewey Decimal Number: 500
EAN: 9780767908184
ASIN: 076790818X
Publication Date: September 14, 2004
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Amazon.com Review
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
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 633 more reviews...
 Very Interesting and Entertaining December 4, 2008
This is an excellent book and is very entertaining to read. It starts by explaining the beginning of time (big bang), and then goes chronologically from there explaining pretty much every aspect of the history of the universe and the Earth.
Of course to fit this all into 400 pages Bryson has to be very brief, as the title of the book implies. But despite being brief, he never leaves out anything important. The book discusses many different subjects, including astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, and especially the biology of life on Earth. It talks a lot about important people from history and how they have advanced science, and often includes amusing facts about these people. The book also talks about lesser-known, but very important, scientists from history; scientists who are often ignored because other scientists have stolen their credit for discoveries.
A major theme in the book is emphasizing how little we humans actually know about the world and universe, which is totally true. After reading this book you'll be amazed by how many species of animals and plants we know absolutely nothing about and how many are estimated to be discovered in the future; you'll see that we really don't know all that much about the history of the Earth; and that we don't really know much about the rest of the universe. It's also quite interesting to note that Bryson has no formal scientific background. He just researched this stuff very thoroughly and then simplified it so that almost anyone can understand the material.
Overall it's a very good book and it was very hard to put down.
Well almost everything November 30, 2008
This book presented an account of history of science in 18th, 19th and 20th century. It made science interesting with stories of scientists and their rivalry. Hmmm almost like a soap opera.
The book also brings out the complexity of life and tries to define the same through simplicity of atoms. It almost succeeded in explaining origin of life. Its a great book.
Now, what got left out. It concentrated too much on western scientists of 18th to 20th century. It does not give any space to ancient scientists who built the foundation of western science. Well, that's why its "nearly" everything.
The last word...go for it... its good.
A Must Read for Everyone November 19, 2008
I purchased "A Short History of Nearly Everything" because of the glowing report of two friends who had read the book. This is a delightfully put together account of "nearly everything". If you are looking to know more about lots of things, this is your book.
A tour through history October 29, 2008
Fabulous, well written book that covers a wide variety of little known or understood topics. Bryson meanders through some of the most interesting parts of our history with his special gifts of quirky insights and stylish prose. This is the book that will have you saying "Wow, I didn't know that. That's really interesting!"
A biography of the universe October 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The most amazing thing about this book is that it manages to live up to its title! Bryson covers a whopping amount of material in just under 600 pages - discussing everything from the expanse of the universe to the confines of a single cell. And he does a more than admirable job. Scientific technicalities are presented in a highly readable manner through the smart use of analogies. His chapter on the solar system, for example, left me with an infinitely more vivid picture of the make-up of our planetary neighbourhood than a dozen other science textbooks would have. Full credit to Bryson as well for writing with a boldness and authority that belies the author's background as a non-scientist.
Many reviews have labelled the book as "a rough guide to science". The book offers so much more. It is really a biography of the universe - a an elegant blend of scientific fact, history and lovely anecdotes that makes everything come to life. Nearly everything at least.
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