Anu answers “How does this book compare to having read...”

Martin Stark asked this question about Origin Story: A Big History of Everything:

How does this book compare to having read both Sapiens by Harari, and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson?

Anu From my perspective:
Short history: This book focused a lot more on evolution of modern science and had some great stories about major inventions and d…moreFrom my perspective:
Short history: This book focused a lot more on evolution of modern science and had some great stories about major inventions and discoveries over the last 250 years in great detail. I felt like the early cosmology aspects were given short shrift. Bryson can be engaging but also a bit tedious.
Sapiens: Focuses a lot more on the "why" of critical moments in humanity's evolution rather than just an overall narrative. Also, very heavy anthropological basis. Harari is brilliant and his analytical genius shines in this book and the ones thereafter
Origin: Does the best job of unifying various aspects of knowledge from cosmology to modern science to anthropology. I enjoyed the analysis of "threshold moments", right from the big bang, creation of stars, galaxies, planets, evolution of life, the breakneck evolution over the past 200 years and a little peek into potential futures. Christian's writing style is not the most interesting but boy, does his content make up for it!

Other books in the same category that I enjoyed were "Our Mathematical Universe" by Max Tegmark (takes a more numerical and data-analysis based approach, with precision cosmology) and "What a wonderful world" by Marcus Chown (very accessible to young adults as well + a wonderfully witty writing style) (less)

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