Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bryson, Bill
Publisher: Crown
Pages: 544
Date Read: 27 July 2017
Bookshelves: read, favorites
My Rating (out of 5): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Actual Rating : 4.75
What Bryson has done, effortlessly and excellently , in this book was to carve a worthy read out of the most soporific of subjects and most tedious of topics. In this book, the author painstakingly tries to give a simplified history of science and i must say, for the most part, did a decent job at it.
He ensured (or did his best to ensure) that we did not have to wade through pages worth of intellectual jargon. Although there were some parts that such complexities could not be helped such as on the subject of atomic structures. It was far too esoteric such that any further simplification would be done at the expense of crucial details. My advice is to coast through this section as fast as possible unless of course you have a filial relationship with J.J. Thompson.
This is one book that never gets old. I easily could go back fifty pages and would feel like I were reading for the first time. Because with this book, the least of my concerns were details like Lord Rutherford’s failed marriage, the multitude of geysers in Yellowstone National park or how unlucky an individual Max Planck was. What consistently arrested my attention was how brilliantly Bill marvelled at putting words together. Many times in the book, I literally had to stop and utter words like “Damn!”, “WOW!” and some rather inappropriate interjections in raw admiration of Bill’s prowess.
That said, I think the book could have been shorter. Bill could have could saved us some redundant details in the anthropological section of the book. I found this part quite difficult to read because it was basically paragraph after paragraph of direct quotations from scientists. It certainly did not help that i was being bombarded with long and weird scientific names of the pre-existing species. The author’s signature analogies and uncommon wit were essentially non-existent in this section and i was for a moment exposed to the horrifying reality of the scientific world; thus giving a rather sad impression that the latter parts of this book might have been rushed.
But honestly, if you are ever interested in reading two books on scientific history distilled with humour and intellectual elegance, grab this book. And read it twice.