a short history of nearly everything illustrated

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. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's best and most embarrassing fights-Cope vs. 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. 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).

With his distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. 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. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.įrom primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. Eloquently and entertainingly described, as well as richly illustrated, science has never been more involving or entertaining. Now, in this handsome new edition, Bill Bryson’s words are supplemented by full-color artwork that explains in visual terms the concepts and wonder of science, at the same time giving face to the major players in the world of scientific study. The result 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.

Taking as his 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. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, the bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body, confronts his greatest challenge yet: to understand-and, if possible, answer-the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. This new edition of the acclaimed bestseller is lavishly illustrated to convey, in pictures as in words, Bill Bryson’s exciting, informative journey into the world of science.

A short history of nearly everything illustrated