Author:Ryan North
***One of BBC Focus magazine's top books of 2018***
Get ready to make history better... on the second try.
Imagine you are stranded in the past (your time machine has broken) and the only way home is to rebuild civilization yourself. But you need to do it better and faster this time round. In this one amazing book, you will learn How to Invent Everything.
Ryan North -- bestselling author, programmer and comic book legend -- provides all the science, engineering, mathematics, art, music, philosophy, facts and figures required for this challenge. Thanks to his detailed blueprint, humanity will mature quickly and efficiently – instead of spending 200,000 years stumbling around in the dark without language, not realising that tying a rock to a string would mean we could navigate the entire world. Or thinking disease was caused by weird smells.
Fascinating and hilarious, How To Invent Everything is an epic, deeply researched history of the key technologies that made each stage of human history possible (from writing and farming to buttons and birth control) – and it's as entertaining as a great time-travel novel.
So if you’ve ever secretly wondered if you could do history better yourself, now is your chance to find out how.
How to Invent Everything is such a cool book ... essential reading
—— Randall Munroe, xkcd creator and bestelling author of WHAT IF? and THING EXPLAINERRyan North is as funny as he is smart, and he is hilarious ... an almost essential primer on the story so far when it comes to science ... suitable for anyone with a sense of humour and some curiosity. Brilliant stuff
—— Starburst magazineA dazzling piece of work that's also genuinely hilarious
—— Elan Mastai, author of ALL OUR WRONG TODAYSAn essential handbook for any hapless time-traveller
—— Prof Lewis Dartnell, author of THE KNOWLEDGE: How to Rebuild our World from ScratchTechnically, we are all time travelers and we are all trapped. So, even if you happen to be scanning this blurb in what you perceive to be a 'normal' timeline, I heartily recommend you read this book cover to cover.
—— Zach Weinersmith, creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and author of SOONISHA hilarious and practical guide
—— Atlas ObscuraPacked with cool, fun, and useful stuff... a friendly and thought-provoking reference, just the thing for the bright kid in the family, to say nothing of the neighbourhood time traveller
A brilliant conceit ... a slyly funny piece of popular science writing
—— Glen Weldon, NPR’s Great Reads of 2018North is incredibly funny, so you’ll be entertained while inventing fundamental technology for your fellow, albeit less-developed, man ... Avoid the pitfalls of our ancestors with this handy guide
—— BookPagewhip-smart and hilarious . . . Combine that humour, intelligence and style with the history of human technology and you’ve got How to Invent Everything
—— Winnipeg Free PressHe has the uncanny ability to bring plants back from the brink of extinction
—— People of LondonCarlos is an inspiration to me. He's the perfect spokesperson for the plants of the world
—— Jane Goodall, primatologist and UN Messenger of PeaceCarlos has been able to achieve things with plants that no one else can do
—— Richard Barley, director of horticulture, KewIt is impossible not to root for Mokhtar. And as with all good bildungsromans, it is as much the reader as the hero who receives an education
—— The Daily TelegraphBrad Stone's The Upstarts reads like a detective story: A page turning who-did-it on the creation of billion dollar fortunes and the ruthless murder of traditional businesses. No single book will tell you more about what life feels like inside companies like Airbnb and Uber as they grow from mere ideas into merciless machines for innovation, riches and unease. The sweat. The stress. The power highs of new instant fortunes. It's all here. You won't be able to put The Upstarts down. And when you finally do, you'll look at your own company and career in a totally fresh way.
—— Joshua Cooper Ramo, author of The Seventh SenseBrad Stone gives us a lively, fascinating picture of the new new thing in technology - startups like Uber and Airbnb that are disrupting old businesses across the world. He provides a much needed glimpse into the companies that fail as well as the ones that make it big. And he points to the broad policy issues raised by these new technologies, which are surely no fun for the people whose lives are being disrupted.
—— Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American WorldFor a flavour of how fast the world is changing, turn to Brad Stone’s The Upstarts
—— DirectorBrad Stone unravels the facts from the mythology surrounding the companies’ rise
—— Harvard Business ReviewA penetrating study marked by the same thorough reporting that distinguished [The Everything Store]
—— SF Gate