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A Short History of Nearly Everything » (Reprint)

Book cover image of A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Authors: Bill Bryson
ISBN-13: 9780767908184, ISBN-10: 076790818X
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Date Published: September 2004
Edition: Reprint

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Author Biography: Bill Bryson

With a wacky worldview -- and wanderlust -- that garners him comparisons to everyone from Chaucer to Dave Barry, Bill Bryson entertains readers around the world with his travelogues and riffs on the intricacies of language.

Book Synopsis

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,...

People

Science with a smile.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction1
Pt. ILost in the Cosmos7
1How to Build a Universe9
2Welcome to the Solar System19
3The Reverend Evans's Universe29
Pt. IIThe Size of the Earth41
4The Measure of Things43
5The Stone-Breakers63
6Science Red in Tooth and Claw79
7Elemental Matters97
Pt. IIIA New Age Dawns113
8Einstein's Universe115
9The Mighty Atom133
10Getting the Lead Out149
11Muster Mark's Quarks161
12The Earth Moves173
Pt. IVDangerous Planet187
13Bang!189
14The Fire Below207
15Dangerous Beauty224
Pt. VLife Itself237
16Lonely Planet239
17Into the Troposphere255
18The Bounding Main270
19The Rise of Life287
20Small World302
21Life Goes On321
22Good-bye to All That335
23The Richness of Being350
24Cells371
25Darwin's Singular Notion381
26The Stuff of Life397
Pt. VIThe Road to Us417
27Ice Time419
28The Mysterious Biped434
29The Restless Ape453
30Good-bye469
Notes479
Bibliography517
Index529

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