A Book Review
A Short History of
Nearly Everything By Bill Bryson
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Published 1st June 2004
Bill Bryson, O.B.E, F.R.S, (born
December 8, 1951), is a best-selling American author of humorous books on
travel, science and the English language.
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‘Welcome, and congratulations. I
am delighted you could make it’; so begins Bills Bryson’s prize-winning,
vibrant prose, A Short History of Nearly
Everything, which is a scientific history of the world. What could make a better read? Your eyes will
crawl quickly over the pages, consuming and enjoying all the knowledge, facts
and tales it has to offer. This books covers biology , physics with a sprinkle of the history of maths.
Bryson brings to life a
whimsical, wonderful wealth of science, which is often shrouded in mystery and
destined not to be deciphered by the non-scientist. Geology, chemistry, palaeontology and
astronomy are imparted in a clear, fun and comprehensible way. Through his
expedition of time and space, Bill Bryson surrenders to whimsical questions,
which many science text books decline to supply. Subsequently, we travel as if
we are on a trip of a lifetime. He does it with such frivolity, clarity and
light heartiness so that even those of you who are most fearful of science
would enjoy it and chuckle your way through this book. However, do not take his
light hearted approach as a lack of concrete knowledge; for Bryson supplies us
with a wealth of scientific facts and anecdotes.
This book is produced with the
assistance of scientists, and each section of the book had to be rubber stamped
with academic authority before its publication. It also won the prestigious Aventis Prize for best general science book in June 2004
and it was one of the best-selling popular science
books of 2005 in the UK, selling over
300,000 copies.
A Short History of Nearly Everything tells us of anecdotal events that inform us of how
certain developments in science have transpired. For example, how the German
chemist Johann Becker in 1685 thought he could extract gold from human urine
(given that urine is yellow like gold – of course!). Becker kept the urine in his cellar for
weeks, and mixed it with other substances until it turned into a bright yellow
paste! As you would expect, it did not turn into gold, but later a strange
thing did happen: when the substance was exposed to light, it would spontaneously
combust. This led to the understanding of phosphorous, and later, to the
development of matches.
With his humour and clear prose,
Bryson surrenders to the questions so many of us would like to ask: Are the
bones of the dinosaurs in the Natural History museum real? How do we know how big Earth is? Do scientists make mistakes, and if so, do
tell? How many bones do we have of dinosaurs? How long do humans have left on
Earth?
Although A Short History of Nearly Everything is limited to American and
European scientists thus lacking in diversity, it still captures and excites your imagination, and takes
you along on a scientific journey that so many science books fail to do.
Some would argue that A Short History of Nearly Everything is
unbalanced and there is not enough biology or maths included in the book; others would say
that the title does not betray the true nature of the book – it is not actually
a history of everything! Nonetheless, although many books like it exist, for
example Horrible Histories, I would
argue that this book has crossed over.
I recommend you give this book a try.
A Short History of Nearly Everything is a fun to read, so much so
that I now have an audio copy. For those of you who like to listen, you can
‘read’ a copy and listen at the same time.
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