This is a great book—quirky, funny, informative with both the microscopic and universal viewpoints.  Only Bryson could start with an 1851 rectory in Norfolk and end up taking the reader through the history of hygiene, clothing and fashion, gardening, evolution, historic preservation, the evolution of the Church of England, etc.  He does so with non-sequitors that turn into clever connections and a great ear/eye for the diverting and ingenious aside.  Famous and forgotten Englishmen pepper these pages as inventors, creators, entrepreneurs, investors, legislators, and hobbyists whose work in the 18th and 19th C led to the largest transformation in private life in history, “socially, intellectually, technologically, hygienically, sartorially, sexually and in almost ever other respect that could be made into an adverb.”  The telling detail (Reverend E.J. Bleasby made 470 unsuccessful applications for a curacy as an example of how the crop failures of the 1870’s and the landowners’ tax led to the decline of the rural areas) and the sweeping connection (Moby Dick and Darwin leading to the scientific revolution) plus the cameos by famous people add up to a great read.  This is a great read!