Bill Bryson's bestsdling trave! books include The Lost Continent, Notes fiom a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. A Short History of Nearly Everything was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize. His htest book is his bestseUing childhood memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, revealing the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Adenowleddement

Introduction

I: Lost in the Cosmos

1 How to Build a Universe

2 Welcome to the Solar System

3 The Reverend Evans's Universe

II: The Size of the Earth

4 The Measure of'Things

5 The Stone-Breakers

6 Science Red in Tooth and Claw

7 Elemental Matters

III: A New Age Dawns

8 Einstein's Universe

9 The Mighty Atom

10 Getting the Lead Out

11 Muster Mark's Quarks

12 The Earth Moves

IV: Dangerous Planet

13 Bang!

14 The Fire Below

15 Dangerous Beauty

V: Life Itself

16 Lonely Planet

17 Into the Troposphere

18 The Bounding Main

19 The Rise of Life

20 Small World

21 Life Goes On

22 Goodbye to All That

23 The Richness of Being

24 Cells

25 Darwin's Singular Notion

26 The Stuff of Life

VI: The Road to Us

27 Ice Time

28 The Mysterious Biped

29 The Restless Ape

30 Goodbye

Notes

Bibliography

Index