{"id":18995,"date":"2023-11-29T20:20:39","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T01:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18995"},"modified":"2023-11-29T21:50:18","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T02:50:18","slug":"a-short-history-of-nearly-everything-by-bill-bryson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18995","title":{"rendered":"‘A Short History of Nearly Everything,’ by Bill Bryson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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There seemed to be a mystifying universal conspiracy among textbook authors to make certain the material they dealt with never strayed too near the realm of the mildly interesting and was always at least a long-distance phone call from the frankly interesting.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Back in the 1970s, <\/strong>one of the most fascinating programs on television was broadcast (in the US) on PBS \u2013 a short English series called \u201cConnections,\u201d<\/a> hosted by James Burke. Burke, a somewhat odd-looking fellow in a sort of leisure suit, took the viewer on a journey through time, tracing how some remote phenomenon in history, like a variety of medieval cargo ship, led through various permutations to the invention of plastics. What made the show work was that Burke kept it down-to-earth (often funny) and related his science to intriguing personalities, events, and places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought of \u201cConnections\u201d often as I read Bill Bryson\u2019s A Short History of Nearly Everything<\/a><\/em>, which I\u2019d been meaning to read, but hadn\u2019t gotten around to until its 20th<\/sup> anniversary of publication (I got a deal on it; it pays to be patient). The book is a history of science, very, very long, but fascinating from front to back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Bryson alternates his chapters between descriptions of the universe and its laws as we understand them, and the pageant of how humans discovered those laws. What makes the book work is, first of all, his knack for helping the non-scientist think about counterintuitive concepts and massive numbers (\u201cyou can get some idea of the proportions if you bear in mind that one atom is to the width of a millimeter line as the thickness of a sheet of paper is to the height of the Empire State Building\u201d<\/em>), along with no reluctance at all to showcase the eccentric or petty sides of revered scientists (to his credit, he also likes doing justice to researchers who\u2019ve been elbowed aside by the spotlight-seekers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overall goal seems to be to wow the reader with how amazing and complex our universe is (and to admit how much we still don\u2019t know about it). The book is full of Wow!<\/em> moments. Bryson clearly loves his material, and he\u2019s eager as a kid to share his delight. 400 pages worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being me, I found some things in his narrative that he probably didn\u2019t intend. The incredible complexity of life and its structures seems to me to suggest intelligent design (though Bryson carefully avoids that subject, seeming to pooh-pooh any idea of a Creator. But that approach leaves a lot of questions unanswered \u2013 surely as many questions as faith leaves unanswered).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big problem with A Short History of Nearly Everything <\/em>\u2013 for this reader \u2013 was sheer input overload. The information provided includes a lot of doomsday talk \u2013 we\u2019re told how likely it is that we\u2019ll collide with an asteroid, or suffer another extinction-level pandemic. When he tried to raise our enthusiasm for environmental causes, I felt more inclined to sit back and say, \u201cYeah, well, you just told me the Yellowstone Caldera is long overdue to erupt and kill us all; it hardly seems worth the effort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, A Short History of Nearly Everything<\/em> is a tremendous book and well deserving of its classic status (even if some of its science is outdated now). I recommend it highly. You\u2019ll find a lot of arguments for Intelligent Design here, even if that wasn’t the intention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There seemed to be a mystifying universal conspiracy among textbook authors to make certain the material they dealt with never strayed too near the realm of the mildly interesting and was always at least a long-distance phone call from the frankly interesting. Back in the 1970s, one of the most fascinating programs on television was … Continue reading ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything,’ by Bill Bryson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[4975,4974],"class_list":["post-18995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","category-reviews","tag-a-short-history-of-nearly-everything","tag-bill-bryson"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18995"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18998,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18995\/revisions\/18998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}