Truth be told, I've been a fan of Carl Sagan since decades, since the time I used to watch his TV series 'Cosmos'. I've always firmly believed Sagan to be the high priest of popular science, the one person who brought together his deep knowledge in myriad disciplines together into one cohesive narrative, ably carrying forward the legacy of European polymath scientists and mathematicians of 16th century and later. And 'Cosmos' perhaps epitomized that ability.
But having read (or actually listened to, on Audible) 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', I'm persuaded to believe that Bill Bryson walks in Sagan's illustrious footsteps surefootedly and with an assured voice. Bryson's book brings together updated knowledge and perspectives on earth sciences, astronomy, core sciences including genetics, archeology and paleontology, medicine, anthropology and sociology, among other fields. On similar lines as Sagan, but with whole new perspectives. Perhaps the only 'Sagan-like' thing missing in this encyclopedic work is the 'leaps of inspiration' strewn throughout 'Cosmos', which many may've been tempted to dismiss as 'philosophizing', but which actually acted as the fulcrum of Sagan's arguments. Bryson goes some way on that path towards the end, especially when ruminating on the pernicious consequences that the rise of humankind has had on the 'disappearance' of thousand of species since ancient times. But otherwise, he revels in bringing to the reader cutting-edge knowledge on how the earth and life on it (including, lately, mankind, which has been there for only a minuscule proportion of earth's age of 4.5 billion odd years) evolved.
One theme running across the book is the huge number of occasions when one scientist discovered or invented something, and someone else ended up getting all the credit (and, lately, the Nobel that went with it). As Bryson quotes one scientist, 'First they refute it, then they accept it, then they credit the wrong person'! And this has been true not only of controversial cases like (allegedly misogynistic) James Watson et all being awarded the Nobel for discovering the structure of DNA, relegating Rosalind Franklin who apparently did most of the gruntwork in X-ray crystallography, and eventually died from the cancer she got while working with it and was thus could not be considered for the Nobel (which is not awarded after the passing of a person).
But it's also happened in so many other celebrated cases like Charles Darwin being anointed the father of evolutionary theory of natural selection, even though he expounded only that it happens, not the how of it. That work was done by the priest Gregor Mendel (it's amazing to know how many scientists and mathematicians of yore were members of the clergy!), of the famous pea plants, who got no credit for it during his prime years and eventually left the field and died unrecognized - his contribution was acknowledged only in early 20th century by another group of scientists. The interesting story is that the detailed notes of Darwin from his HMS Beagle voyages across the world kept lying almost untouched for years, till he was motivated to write up his observations and conclusions when he got a manuscript from another scientist Alfred Wallace whose theories were too close for comfort to his own, all the time looking over this shoulders lest Church and country denounce him for even alluding that man evolved from ape! To be fair, though, Darwin got his theory published alongside that of Wallace.
It's such stories which enliven Bryson's tome and take it to a level much beyond just the bare facts which are availably aplenty in the cloud. And all through, while talking about evolution, Bryon cautions us that our very existence hanged by a thread and does even now, what with unimaginably powerful forces like the earth's magma chambers raring to explode as volcanoes, at such unexpected places as the Grand Canyon in US.
The other running theme is of course the multi-talented nature of many renowned scientists of those days, specialization only appearing towards the latter part of 20th century. It seems the flowering of their mind was aided in no small measure with what such towering personalities did in their 'off time', whether it was music and arts or something else! Alas, not only are such personalities long gone but, as a scientist tells Bryon, there is sometimes no continuity even in research into a discipline once someone working on it passes, no 'succession planning', till the field catches the fancy of the next group of scientists and, more relevant for modern times, till funding comes along, which may not happen for decades altogether.
Towards the end of the book, Bryson makes a fervent appeal for humankind to recognize the damaging effect it has had on the survival of so many species of life, from land animals to birds to amphibians to marine creatures, a process which is still continuing. And this when hominids have been on the planet for a minuscule two million years or so, as compared to the tens of millions for which dinosaurs roamed the earth, and hundred of millions (or even billions) of years for which many other creatures including microbes have been the inhabitants of earth, and continue to be. It's this which can perhaps be read as the overarching message of this great piece of work.
