How to Invent Everything

paperback, 480 pages

Published Sept. 16, 2019 by Riverhead Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-7352-2015-7

(1 review)

The only book you need if you're going back in time

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat?

With this book as your guide, you'll survive—and thrive—in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted—from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most …

The only book you need if you're going back in time

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat?

With this book as your guide, you'll survive—and thrive—in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted—from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever. You're about to make history. . . better.

5 editions

Soh Kam Yung reviewed How to Invent Everything by Ryan North

Having gone back in time, now create a civilization so you can rebuild your time machine, and repeat. :-)

4 stars

A fun book that uses the premise of a time traveller stranded in the past and having to make the best of things by starting off humanity on the path of civilization. The means of doing this is by bypassing the trial and errors that humanity went through and going straight to the solutions needed to set up a working modern civilization.

The book starts off with tips for the stranded time traveller to find out where and when he might be. Assuming the traveller is lucky and ends up in a certain time period where modern man was around, but civilization hasn't been established yet, the book goes on with the basis of setting up a civilization, namely getting a spoken and written language, a 'rational' system of numbers and establishing the scientific method.

Farming is then introduced so that people's basis calorie needs are satisfied and can devote …

A fun book that uses the premise of a time traveller stranded in the past and having to make the best of things by starting off humanity on the path of civilization. The means of doing this is by bypassing the trial and errors that humanity went through and going straight to the solutions needed to set up a working modern civilization.

The book starts off with tips for the stranded time traveller to find out where and when he might be. Assuming the traveller is lucky and ends up in a certain time period where modern man was around, but civilization hasn't been established yet, the book goes on with the basis of setting up a civilization, namely getting a spoken and written language, a 'rational' system of numbers and establishing the scientific method.

Farming is then introduced so that people's basis calorie needs are satisfied and can devote energy to other matters. Units of measurements (length, weights, etc.) are added, followed by more details on how to farm more productively (selective breeding and crop rotation). A list of plants and animals that are useful are also given.

Once people can be properly fed, industry is then added. Basic farming technology is added (the plough and harness), followed by ways to preserve food. Mining machinery is added, leading to more machines and the beginnings of the industrial age, all the way to electrical machines.

Other basic items of civilization are introduced like clocks, thermometers, sewing, birth control, housing materials (cement and concrete), paper and transport (bicycles, boats, aeroplanes) are added. The basics of medicine and first aid are added, and the book ends of 'luxuries' like music and the basics of computers.

With that, the stranded time traveller might be able to 'kick-start' humanity on the path of civilization and end up where he or she started, with the abilities to build a time machine to go back in time, again.