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A Short History of Nearly Everything
written by Bill Bryson
Studio : Broadway
by Broadway
Release Date : 2003-05-06
Publisher : Broadway
Released : 2003-05-06
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 819 reviews)
List Price : $27.50
Our Price : $19.22
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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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Harvardbooksellers.com Review |
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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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Brilliant, Beguiling Bryson |
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Wow! This guy can WRITE. Bryson makes complex, esoteric science understandable in a book I could scarcely put down. As compelling a read as a good spy adventure novel--well-drawn characters, surprising revalations, bitter rivalries, vendettas, Nobel-chasing antagonists. And, scientific explications that a reader can comprehend. His discussion of the powers of ten alone is worth the price of admission. Witty, wry, sometimes ribald humor throughout eases the mind-torquing exertions the reader might have to perform. This is REAL science, but written in a way that facilitates real understanding. |
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Great author, Great material. |
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Packed full of information, yet presented with a humorous and lighthearted style, this book is crafted to both inform and entertain and succeeds with an aptitude that few authors can muster. Bill Bryson is clever, and his sardonic wit colors almost every page as you travel with him from the beggining of time all the way to modern mayhems. Truly a great read, and in a digestible format. |
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Remarkable Book |
This book is a wonderful romp through all areas of science, peppered with Bill Bryson's dry humor approach. I used this book in a class I called "Evolution of Science" in which I was able to teach the "Big Ideas" of science in all disciplines. Bryson does a great job of breaking down these ideas into stories that involve the individuals that brought these ideas forward. This personal approach made the ideas "come to life" as students learn a lot more about how science works and of the type of person that can often be involved in the biggest ideas. One reviewer noted that this was a drawback to the book - that too much time was spent on this aspect. But it makes the stories interesting and also makes one realize the brave audacity one must have to bring forward what appear to be "crazy ideas." Imagine the reception recieved by the individual who first proposed that the continents are floating. The same is true for Darwin, Newton, and many others.
From a teaching perspective, this approach breathes life into these ideas and illustrates why the "scientific process" became important and why a good scientists always questions the norm. I very much enjoyed the book, but will admit that it is the CD audiobook that got me through. |
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The science bible for the layperson |
This book far exceeded any expectations that I had and I was a little disappointed by the time I reached the end. While science certainly fascinates me, I often get frustrated at my failure to grasp much beyond basic concepts given the complexity of the topic and the failure of most scientists to make such complex topics accessible. As a result, I'm usually intimidated by many science books because they go deep very quickly and assume a far greater depth of scientific knowledge than most people have --- my education was primarily in the humanities with a smattering of lower level science courses.
Bryson strikes the right balance of breadth and depth, explaining sophisiticated concepts in digestible fashion, while also providing relevant context. This context may not appeal to a scientist, but certainly is quite valuable to a lay reader. Bryson adeptly uses these contextual elements to perfection and brings fun and interesting historical information without detracting from the book's broader goal.
I'd certainly recommend this book the curious person who may be easily intimidated by complex science. I've read Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and mostly felt like I was going through the motions without a deep understanding of the subject matter. While Bryson's book certainly make me an expert, I was totally engaged and felt far smarter about a range of science concepts than before I picked up this book. |
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Nearly everything is missing |
When I picked up this book, I thought the "everything" in "nearly everything" was everything. In the introduction, the author makes it seem that way too. He fails to mention (anywhere in the book) that his perception of "everything" is just the natural sciences. It is a fun, engaging, acceptably thorough survey of the way mankind first discovered and now views the natural sciences, and for that, it is worth notice. But to say that it is a take on everything is not only wrong, but arrogant and blind. Granted, the author probably didn't create the title, and it was probably a gimmicky phrase thought to fall in line with Stephen Hawking's catchy titles, it is a fair representation of the author's perspective, which resonates throughout the text.
The biggest part of "everything" is man's culture and it is not even regarded except in the findings of science. And even then, it is severely deficient. When it looks at Relativity or Evolution, for example, it passes up the opportunity for really exploring the theories so that the author can spend more time on the scientist's lives and events surrounding the actual science. I guess that's why it's a history and not a science book, but getting just a taste is painful for those seeking more than just cocktail party anecdotes. The book doesn't even touch on all of the sciences--most notably lacking a survey of psychology. Neuroscience is perhaps at the forefront of "everything" and it isn't even hinted at here.
Instead, Bryson broadcasts, in the officious, repetitive, and sarcastic way so many outside of science do, that man and his culture are insignificant, lucky and dangerous. Amnesia strikes the author several times as he asserts how innovative and creative we have been by examining a few of the great natural philosophers and then abruptly claims how harmful and puny we are. He will claim how vast the earth is and how easily it (or an asteroid) could destroy the insignificant mankind and then notes how we are destroying the earth and are a likely candidate for the most destructive thing in the universe.
Bryson sees man's product as shameful and the rest of the universe as brilliant and awesome. The truth of the latter should not necessitate the former. |
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