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| A Short History of Nearly Everything | 
| Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy Used: $4.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  632 reviews
Sales Rank: 11162
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0767908171
Dewey Decimal Number: 500
EAN: 9780767908177
ASIN: 0767908171
Publication Date: May 6, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
Bill Bryson is one of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, he takes his ultimate journey–into the most intriguing and consequential questions that science seeks to answer. It’s a dazzling quest, the intellectual odyssey of a lifetime, as this insatiably curious writer attempts to understand everything that has transpired from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. Or, as the author puts it, “…how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since.” This is, in short, a tall order.
To that end, Bill Bryson apprenticed himself to a host of the world’s most profound scientific minds, living and dead. His challenge is to take subjects like geology, chemisty, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics and see if there isn’t some way to render them comprehensible to people, like himself, made bored (or scared) stiff of science by school. His interest is not simply to discover what we know but to find out how we know it. How do we know what is in the center of the earth, thousands of miles beneath the surface? How can we know the extent and the composition of the universe, or what a black hole is? How can we know where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out?
On his travels through space and time, Bill Bryson encounters a splendid gallery of the most fascinating, eccentric, competitive, and foolish personalities ever to ask a hard question. In their company, he undertakes a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only this superb writer can render it. Science has never been more involving, and the world we inhabit has never been fuller of wonder and delight.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 627 more reviews...
 Not really short, nor about everything, but worth the effort October 7, 2008
This book is quite different from Bryson's usual fare. Here Bryson steps out of his usual travel and language focus to write about science. The product is an interesting combination of the social history of science, biographies of famous scientists, and discussion of significant scientific discoveries in very accessible language. What science does Bryson cover, you might ask? This is where "everything" comes in to the picture. Bryson has chosen a wide range of scientific discoveries, from working out the theory of evolution to discovering the size and shape of the earth. Mostly, Bryson focuses on the largest and smallest things in the universe. He looks at galaxies and volcanoes, but also DNA and atoms. Truly, this book is expansive. For the lay reader, it becomes clear that there's a tremendous amount of knowledge tied up in this book, and it's amazing just how much Bryson had to learn to write it. For the non-scientist, this book manages to create a sense of awe, wonder, and fear, all at the same time. Bryson does an excellent job of highlighting just how surprising and contingent the fact of our existence is, and how complicated it was to get here. He creates amazement as the reader is forced to consider almost unfathomable dimensions, both gargantuan and tiny. Contingency is clearly the most significant theme that emerges from the work. Bryson also paints an interesting portrait of the practice of science, scientific culture, and a sense of just how difficult and tenuous some conclusions are. While it's amazing just how much scientists have discovered, it's even more daunting to consider how much remains inconclusive. Overall, this is an extremely accessible discussion of some difficult topics, infused with Bryson's humor and style. It's a long read, but well worth the effort.
 like drinking out of a fire hose September 30, 2008
Great book with broad coverage of history and science. not a quick read. You need to have your brain awake and engaged while reading.
Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything September 23, 2008
Bill Bryson narrates a brief yet epic journey of everything from the nothingness of which the universe sprang, to the development of technologies that only a handful of people on our planet understand in one of his best-selling books, A Short History of Nearly Everything. From the top of the world's tallest mountains to the bottom of the deepest petrie dish, Bryson tells the tale of nearly every event that has shaped the universe and the people that unlocked those mysteries. By rejecting the standard stale textbook format, Bryson has assembled a collection of stories that weave together to tell the tale of how we, and everything else, came to be. This book is an easy and interesting read for those who have ever questioned the intricacies of our world, wanted answers, but was unwilling to sift through college textbooks for them.
 Decent overview of the sciences September 18, 2008
This is a good overview of the fundamentals of science. It meanders through astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, geology, and paleontology and is very well written. Through Bryson's style, you can tell that he enjoys the subject matter. The "History" part of the title refers to both history in the sense of the universe, but also the history of the bright individuals and their insights that have allowed us to know that history.
What makes this book distinct is that Bryson was not too long ago in the reader's position (i.e. learning the basics of the sciences) and thereby rarely omits something pertinent to understanding, and his enthusiasm is still fresh and obvious; both of which are a welcomed change from classical science writing. Unfortunately, his lack of expertise leads to the occasional oversimplification, exaggeration, and falsehood- but understandably (and forgiveably) so.
In the regrettable trade off between expertise and comprehensibility, this settles on the "comprehensible" side of the spectrum. If that's what you're looking for, you'll find it here.
ALMOST EVERYTHING September 16, 2008
It's a tough call trying to squeeze earth's history into approximately 450 pages, but Bill Bryson has done it. With his trademark gentle humour and a focus on making even the most complex subjects (such as the nature dark matter and our evolution from chimp to Homo sapien) easy to grasp, Bryson has created a thoroughly readable and more importantly, enjoyable, book.
I am no science whiz, and I will freely admit that there were certain topics that confused me or just didn't hold my attention (for example, I'm not particularly interested in the nature of clouds). Yet despite this, there was so much that I learnt from this book.
This really is a fascinating read, so if you're interested in learning a little more about this amazing planet we call home, `A Short History of Nearly Everything' will keep you captivated for hours.
Zara Stevens
Boy Meets Girl: A Pocketful of Wedding Stories
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