If you ever wanted to read about, well, everything Peter Watson's book would do "everything" justice. He covers the development of human thought, what factors made human ingenuity possible, and how humans branched out in thought to create religion, philosophy, astronomy, and just about anything else you can think of. "Fire to Freud" is not just for the seconary title. This is a well-researched history book and Watson has a whole raft of notes and endnotes so if you were curious about a source you could go look that book up to read on your own. I received this as a Christmas gift several years ago and happily spent many evenings curled up in bed, reading away about the development of writing, literacy, agriculture, and scientific theory. I enjoyed Ideas more than I did A Short History of Nearly Everything (also a good book for reading on lazy evenings and rainy afternoons) primarily because while Bryson really did go for a "short history," Watson went further and tried to show how idea and thought built off of established methodologies.
