The Browser's Book of Beginnings: Origins of Everything Under, and Including, the Sun

by Charles Panati

Describes the origins of more than 1000 objects, ideas, movements, and concepts, including checkers, the computer, ragtime, Islam, ice cream, the abacus, Yiddish, and many other familiar and not-so-familiar things

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, History, Trivia, Science

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Charles Panati is a former college professor, industrial physicist, author, and science editor of Newsweek.

Reviews

[Richp · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable bathroom book. Published in 1984 some of the information has been superceded by modern scholarship. There are a number of obvious errors independent of that, including text disagreeing with illustration and caption, and at least one case text with text within the same paragraph.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

At some points it was really interesting... like the parts about how people thought it was good to bleed and how William the Conquerer exploded at his funeral... haha anyways this was an interesting book and I liked it. Just be prepared for questionable looks from people when you tell them you're reading a book about death and endings.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning of this book was the best part because it basically starts with the big bang and talks about evolution and stuff for a while. The more recent parts were pretty OK, just not as fascinating to me personally.

[Allison Eve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but there was at least one thing that I had to fact check and found wrong, which throws the whole thing into a questionable light, yes?