A short history of nearly everything

Science and nature

Print length: 624 pagesBroadway Books, 2005

Description

Bill Bryson sets out to explain how the universe, Earth, life, and humanity came to exist, translating an immense range of science into language for nonspecialists. He moves from the Big Bang and the scale of atoms to geology, evolution, quantum mechanics, and the rise of modern humans, pausing to examine asteroid strikes, Krakatoa, Yellowstone, and other forces capable of remaking the planet. Alongside the ideas, humorous portraits of eccentric researchers show scientific knowledge emerging through rivalry, error, persistence, and discovery. The survey also considers climate change, extinction, and humanity’s effects on other species, connecting cosmic history to present vulnerability. Its organizing achievement is to make both the vastness of nature and the improbability of human existence comprehensible within a single narrative.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Descriptive · Direct · Witty

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Cerebral · Earnest · Humorous · Reflective

Structure

Chronological nonfiction · Episodic

Focus

Ideas · Information

Emotional intensity

2 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

Knowledge and truthLegacyMortalityNature and environment

About Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is an American-British nonfiction writer whose subjects range from travel and language to science and domestic history. A former newspaper journalist, he gathers large quantities of information and arranges them as a guided tour, using brisk explanations, comic anecdotes, and digressions into the people and accidents behind accepted knowledge. His travel books add self-deprecation and close social observation to that method. In A Walk in the Woods, an inadequately prepared Appalachian Trail hike becomes the spine for excursions into ecology, conservation, and the communities beside the route. A Short History of Nearly Everything applies a similar curiosity at cosmic scale, moving from atoms and geology to evolution and human vulnerability. At Home reverses the scale again, using the rooms of a rectory to trace commerce, architecture, technology, and changing habits. His prose is conversational and direct, often moving from an ordinary object or bodily fact to a much larger history. He repeatedly attends to how knowledge is made and how error and eccentricity complicate orderly accounts of progress.