A Short History of Nearly Everything

Why it’s on the list: Bryson’s tour of how the sciences arrived at what they currently believe — cosmology, geology, chemistry, evolution — organised around the people who got there and how often they were nearly wrong. A history of knowledge rather than of events.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @typesfast’s question, “What’s the best history book you’ve read?” (June 5, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on What’s the best history book… (tweet). It was listed there as “A Short History of Nearly Everything”.

Connections

• Bill Bryson — the author.
• Science — the subject, told as a sequence of arguments.
• Open Source Knowledge — the book’s project is making specialist knowledge legible.
• What’s the best history book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.