A Short History of Nearly Everything

Rating:
Summary: Book Report on Popular Science
Review: For me, this book was very disappointing. Rather than being a well-thought out book on science, it turned out to be a book report on the best-selling science books of the last twenty years. If one looks at the bibliography and the notes at the end, it becomes obvious that Bill Bryson gets most of his information from sources aimed at the general reader. I think one would be much better off reading the books in the bibliography that go into each subject in-depth and are written by specialists rather than getting this summary version.

Bryson also seems to have a fixation with all the ways nature can destroy our civilization.

Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Read
Review: In an age of increasing credulity it is refreshing to find an accesible book regarding science and scientific method. Bill Bryson takes the baton from the late Carl Sagan and Steven J. Gould and does an excellent job making sometimes difficult subject matter not only readable but entertaining. A Short History of Nearly Everything should be required reading for everyone in America!

Rating:
Summary: good, period(.)
Review: If you love the sciences, this is a must read. If you hate the sciences, not reading this would be treason to humanity. As complete as a holistic science book gets, and with such a broad spectrum to cover, Bryson writes with enough clarity to impress an english major, and with enough interesting information fascinate and enlighten a geologist.

The book was completly impressive except for maybe the last chapter which was seemed to be more agenda-driven than enlightening. But all in all, a must-read. Buy this book for your cousin who does cancer research, or for your bussinessman uncle. Everyone can get into it....everyone should get into it.

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Summary: The history of our times and life
Review: This excellent book takes an in-depth look at not only the history of modern science but how it got there, who did it and why it happened. It takes an incredible look at the complexity of life and is very humbling of our own meager 'successes' when compared to the magnificience of nature and its marvels.

It touches nearly every subject of science and presents them as school should present it to its students: how and why are they relevent to us and why should we care? Science is too often squarely objective, cold and unattractive and a main reason seems to be that both kids and adults do not understand just how prevalent science is in our modern technology.

It's not worth learning about science if you don't know how to use it, what it can do and what it can't do. This book presents science in a way we can relate and understand in everyday life and still manages to go deep enough in explanations to explain the workings of the complexity that surrounds us from the perspective of someone who uses science, as is the majority of us, as opposed to someone who makes science.

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Summary: Bryson makes science interesting
Review: I bought a bunch of books online, most on a whim, and two stood out from the rest. Make Every Girl Want You and A Short History of Nearly Everything. I learned more from these two books than everything else combined (yes, between the two books, the authors covered everything from the science of women to the history of science). Bryson covers everything, and I do mean everything. I've never been a science buff, but I learned so much from this book that I just refused to read in school. Bryson's biggest asset is his ability to make science interesting. Which is peculiar, because Bryson has a tendency to ramble in his other books, but he keeps things concise (well, as concise as you can in a 600 page book) and interesting in this one. I agree with the other reviewer who said - if only actual textbook writers could write like this!

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Summary: Wonderful Overview of Science and Scientists
Review: I think this book should replace the texts used in most high school science courses. If it did, I think we would see more kids pursuing science careers, because Bryson does a wonderful job of conveying the joy and excitement of doing science as well as a sense of awe that our world evolved as it did.

Sure, given a book of this nature, there is plenty people could quibble with. Bryson's writing style is amusing and entertaining, though it doesn't come close to matching "A walk in the woods," (but then again, not much could...). Readers expecting the humor quotient of that book or Bryson's other travel books will be disappointed, however. And although one can tell Bryson struggled valiantly to make the chapter on quantum physics understandable, he didn't succeed (at least for me). For example, he relates a study showing that one atomic particle can affect another atomic particle 70 miles away, simultaneously. I still don't understand how that can happen and wish somebody could explain it to me.

But those are minor complaints compared to what this book is able to accomplish, which is to provide a broad, yet admirably detailed, education in the physical and biological sciences. I am overjoyed to see this book on the bestseller lists, because if enough people read it, we can no longer be accused of being the scientific ignoramuses that we largely have been. I think it could also work to serve more effectively as an environmental wake-up call than the wide array of existing polemical books that are read only by the already convinced.

Lastly, perhaps the aspect of the book I admired and enjoyed the most is the way Bryson provides the human side of science through his frequent character sketches of the quirks and foibles of the many scientists whose work is reviewed. I may soon forget, once again, all three of Newton's laws of motion, but I will never--for the rest of my life--forget that he once inserted a rod behind his eyeball and stirred it around "just to see what would happen." This book is worth reading just for the anecdotes, and along the way you will learn an incredible amount of science.

Rating:
Summary: Take a trip through the past
Review: "A Short History of Everything" by Bill Bryson explains things (in this case, science) in a way that is meaningful to everyone. It takes you on a trip through the history of science. If you take this trip, you'll have a short education on nearly everything. I highly recommend you do so. And, if you enjoy trip's through the past like this, I recommend you also take a trip through history and philosophy with the book intriguingly called "West Point: Character Leadership..." by Remick to round out your short education on everything so wonderfully presented to you to start with by Bill Bryson in his "Short History of Nearly Everything".

Rating:
Summary: Lying Under Fourteen Cement Trucks
Review: The Short History should be mandatory reading for everyone. It must be the most painless and entertaining book about the field of science ever written. Hopefully those who read it will become interested in science, and read more books that describe the wonderful world around us. BB does cover most everything from Astronomy to Zoology.

I am a layman who loves to read science books, and I must say that I learned some new things by reading the Short History. Bryson devotes a significant amount of the book to the history of science, writing out brief biographies of discoverers from the famous like Darwin, to the unknown like Hallum Movius. Indeed, he seems to like the obscure scientists the best, and on reading about discoveries and their discoverers you do, indeed, begin to subscribe to the saying that new discoveries are first rejected by the scientific community; then are put down as of little importance; and when fully accepted the credit for them is given to the wrong person.

I picked up many interesting facts such as that the layers of ash underground in eastern Nebraska came from a volcanic eruption in Yellowstone park. The explosion was roughly 300 times larger than Mt. St. Helens and the ash settled on 19 western states. Sometime in the future Yellowstone will blow again..

While I heartily endorse this fun book, I do have a few criticisms. First of all the author is a bit patronizing in presenting data. He buries you under metaphors. The average water pressure at the ocean's average depth is presented not as pounds per square inch, but as the weight of fourteen cement trucks lying on top of you. The book bulges with things that tell you that if something very teeny were the size of basketballs then the number of them in your body would stretch from here to the constellation Cygnus. Does this make things simpler than to just tell you that there are 10 million of them per square millimeter?

The other problem is that when you put the book down after consuming its 500 pages you quickly realize that you haven't really learned much science. This is not Mr. Bryson's fault, I guess. Subtract the history from the book, and really how much overall scientific information can you provide? There is a section of the book that is devoted to cells, and after reading it I realized that about all that was really presented on cell function was that ATP is manufactured in the mitochondria, and that there is such a thing as programmed cell death. Cellular function is one of the world's most fascinating marvels, and has been described in books such as the exciting and very accessible book Life Itself, by Boyce Rensberger. I worry that BB's chapter on the cell will not spur much interest in this topic. He again spends too much time with his metaphors, e.g. the heart pumps 675, 000 gallons of blood per year which is enough to fill 4 Olympic size swimming pools; and that cells are frenzied places each containing 100 million protein molecules (and if each, I suppose, were the size of a Chevy Suburban and placed end to end would'.well you know how it goes).

But, don't let my nitpicks dissuade you from reading this enjoyable book filled with Bill Bryson's usual wit. It's one of the first science books that I have read that I have laughed my way through.

Rating:
Summary: Inevitable odds and magic
Review: If you've ever read 'The Dancing Wu Li Masters', 'The Mind's Eye', or 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman' and liked them, then you're in for a real treat, with a caveat. Bryson does an impressive job of bringing us (the subject of the 'short history') up to date with the current formulations of what makes us what we are, and everything else, what it is.
He writes about, news flash, everything related to the physical sciences as they relate to who we are, how we know who we are, how we know from where we came, and how the physical world that we are a part of interacts with us (and plays strange hide-and-seek games with us). The Big Bang, primordial soup, the enlightenment, industrialism -- it's covered.
He's a master story-teller; the book flows with ease. Bryson details a theory, and then gives the back story of the discovery. What you wind up with is a formula of a renaissance-man coupled to Jerry Springer. In fact, some of the stories Bryson recounts are made-for-reality TV set in the age before Springer and TV.
The caveat: Bryson himself becomes the Springer episode. To wit, Bryson affixes an inordinate amount of blame to our current suffering to a man who advocated the use of lead in household products. The departure of objectivity in this relatively short passage in the book is a minor inconvenience.

Rating:
Summary: An ambitiously titled read that will not disappoint !!!!
Review: Having just returned from Kuwait, and having read a few too many 'classics' whilst there, I was thirsty for something hot-off-the-shelf. The ambitious title of this book, coupled with my fondness for Bill Bryson's work, made this an easy choice. This book absolutely fascinated me. I spent two days of my post-deployment vacation glued to the couch reading. It was time well spent.

Somewhat of a departure from Bryson's typical travel narrative, this travel narrative takes the reader back aeons and follows roads of human curiosity, discovery, and ancestry. Akin to such books as 'The Mother Tongue' and 'Made in America', 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' is very much so an educational experience and a fun one at that. Anyone with an interest in zoology, archaeology, astronomy, geology, physics, paleontology, et al. will love this book; those with simply insatiable curiosities will too.

This book fits comfortably amongst my favorite non-fiction reads. I trust others will agree.