A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's 2003 popular-science book, a sustained good-faith attempt by a non-scientist travel writer to understand, and to explain, the answers to every major scientific question he had stopped asking after high school. Bryson took roughly three years to research the book, traveling to laboratories, observatories, and field sites and interviewing dozens of working scientists, including the cosmologist Martin Rees, the paleontologist Richard Fortey, and the bacterial geneticist Lynn Margulis. The book moves in roughly the order of cosmic history. It opens with the Big Bang and the formation of the elements, walks through the formation of the Earth and the discovery of its age, traces the origin of life and the long evolution of complex creatures, and closes with the rise of human beings and the impact our species has had on the planet. Bryson has a comic instinct for the personal eccentricities and feuds of working scientists. The book won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Prize for science communication.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about A Short History of Nearly Everything
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A bestselling travel writer turns his curiosity loose on science itself, walking readers from the Big Bang to human evolution with the people, blunders, and discoveries that got us here.
A Short History of Nearly Everything was extensively fact-checked and is generally accurate as of its 2003 publication. Some specifics in fast-moving fields like cosmology, paleogenetics, and physics have been updated since. The illustrated edition was revised in 2010.
Yes. The book is accessible to readers 13 and up. Bryson's conversational style and use of anecdotes make complex science approachable. It is often recommended as an introductory science reader.
A Short History of Nearly Everything was written by Bill Bryson, published in 2003 by Broadway Books.
A Short History of Nearly Everything is 592 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, A Short History of Nearly Everything takes most readers 9 to 13 hours to finish.
A Short History of Nearly Everything is a standalone novel by Bill Bryson, not part of a series.
A Short History of Nearly Everything is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.