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| A Short History of Nearly Everything | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95 (39.90 RON)
Buy New: $11.53 (27.14 RON)
You Save: $5.42 (12.76 RON) (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  619 reviews
Sales Rank: 1235
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 076790818X
Dewey Decimal Number: 500
EAN: 9780767908184
ASIN: 076790818X
Publication Date: September 14, 2004
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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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
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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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, chemistry, 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.
“Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy and at all the levels in between... brims with strange and amazing facts... destined to become a modern classic of science writing.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES “Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time Bryson hikes through the world of science.”
PEOPLE “Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely eloquent... a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world’s biggest story.”
SEATTLE TIMES “Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable.”
SIMON WINCHESTER, THE GLOBE AND MAIL “All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too) can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable explanations.”
NATIONAL POST "Bryson is a terrific stylist. You can’t help but enjoy his writing, for its cheer and buoyancy, and for the frequent demonstration of his peculiar, engaging turn of mind.”
OTTAWA CITIZEN “Wonderfully readable. It is, in the best sense, learned.”
WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
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| Customer Reviews: Read 614 more reviews...
 A valuable service to society - don't quibble over facts August 27, 2008
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'm not normally a "deep" reader, so I really appreciated Mr. Bryson's effort to make these subjects more accessible. In fact, after reading this, I was inspired to take another look at some of the more challenging titles in this genre. Therein is the real value of this book, from my perspective. He opens a door to us who tend to be a bit intimidated by the scholarly tomes about such topics as the life-cycle of a proton. Maybe we just need a little encouragement to dig a bit deeper. Those who focus on pointing out factual mistakes are missing the point.
 The history of our world for dummies August 17, 2008
Bryson does a great job of compiling a huge amount of information into a mere 475 pages. It is well organized, easy to read, and surprisingly enjoyable considering the complexity of certain topics. While some subjects, like geology, microbiology and atomic structure were a bit tedious, I really enjoyed reading about astronomy and especially anthropology (my favorite class in college). This comprehensive book embarks upon the history of the world we live in, from the nothingness of a pre-Big Bang universe, to the atoms that compose everything, to the primordial soup that yielded life, and to our most ancient hominid ancestors. What makes this book work is not that Bryson presents the history of nearly everything, but how these everythings were discovered. He investigates the history of exploration and narrates how scientists discovered answers to some of the most fundamental questions pertaining to who we are and how we came to be (especially during the 18th and 19th centuries). Bryson's goal was to fulfill his readers in ways that textbooks never did and he did that in an entertaining and often humorous way. For someone like me who often cringes at the mention of certain science topics (physics, chemistry), Bryson's delivery felt comfortable and was not intimidating. Best of all, Bryson left me with awe and wonder at the sequence of events that led our planet to enable our existence.
 Interesting but not up to my expectations August 14, 2008
The book covers the history of several scientific areas and tries to tell a coherent story covering the most important discoveries. Most chapters give interesting information, but sometimes the historic trivia outnumber the scientific facts and figures. Chapters 4-5-6 are long winded and almost caused me to stop reading (they definitely need rewriting!). The second half of the book (biology, anthropology) has sounder foundations and is better argumented. It is certainly an interesting work for later reference and it gives an interesting and very extensive bibliography. Some of the conclusions are biased or lack correct arguments (especially where physics is involved, it often comes down to popular talking rahter than correctly argumented science, so in the end you learn nothing new). All in all a book worth reading and owning but a little disappointing, considering the enormous expectations formed by some reviews.
One of the Most Useful and Best Science Books I Own August 12, 2008
This is a fantastic book. If you're interested in science and history, this is the book for you. Bryson brings up interesting trivia about key people and events in science history.
He shares the story of Thomas Midgley. His two great claims to fame were putting lead into gasoline and the development of chlorofluorocarbons. Bryson shares the observation that seldom has one person inflicted so much damage with his inventions.
I have a "junk" copy of the book that I have marked and written in. I use this to read to my 6th & 7th grade students when we are discussing that topic in science. I also love the way he begins the book. I can't think of a better way to start the school year to the read the beginning of the book.
Each year I recommend this book to my student's parents when I send out my monthly newsletter to them.
I strongly recommend this book and assure you that you won't regret your purchase!
Almost a great book August 11, 2008
I love science from a historical perspective. The people who do the science and the cultures that surround them make for exciting and inspiring stories. The book starts out well, but gets bogged down in the last chapters in a depressing rant against the human animal, and it is sometimes filled with pages of details that seem to lead nowhere. A really good science editor is needed to make this book what it should be.
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