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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, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
Copyright © 2003 by Bill Bryson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by andom House Large Print in association with Broadway Books, New York and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
The Library of Congress has established a Cataloging-in-Publication record for this title.
0-375-43200-0
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As I sit here, in early 2003, I have before me several pages of manuscript bearing majestically encouraging and tactful notes from Ian Tattersal of the American Museum of Natural History pointing out, inter alia, that Perigueux is not a wineproducing region, that it is inventive but a touch unorthodox of me to italicize taxonomic divisions above the level of genus and species, that I have persistently misspelled Olorgesaille, a place that I recently visited, and so on in similar vein through two chapters of text covering his area of expertise, early humans. Goodness knows how many other inky embarrassments may lurk in these pages yet, but it is thanks to Dr. Tattersall and all of those whom I am about to mention that there aren't many hundreds more. I cannot begin to thank adequately those who helped me in the preparation of this book. I am especially indebted to the following, who were uniformly generous and kindly and showed the most heroic reserves of patience in answering one simple, endlessly repeated question: "I'm sorry, but can you explain that again?" In the United States: Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York; John Thorstensen, Mary K. Hudson, and David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; Dr. William Abdu and Dr. Bryan Marsh of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire; Ray Anderson and Brian Witzke of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Iowa city; Mike Voorhies of the University of Nebraska and Ashfall Fossil Beds State Park near Orchard, Nebraska; Chuck Offenburger of Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, Iowa; Ken Rancourt, director of research, Mount Washington Observatory, Gorham, New Hampshire; Paul Doss, geologist of Yellowstone National Park, and his wife, Heidi, also of the National Park; Frank Asara of the University of California at Berkeley; Oliver Payne and Lynn Addison of the National Geographic Society; James O. Farlow, IndianaPurdue University; Roger L. Larson, profes