A slightly more accurate title for this book would have been "A Short History of Many Fields of Science". When I originally got this book, I thought it was going to be more about things like ancient Egypt and the Roman empire. Instead it talked about things like the history of chemistry and geology. Really interesting stuff, just not what I expected. One surprising thing about the book was how quickly some of the information was. For instance, there was a whole section on the "planet" Pluto. Overall I would recommend the book, especially as a book that you can quickly pick up whenever you have a few moments to read.