The Know-It-All

Last updated
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
The know it all.jpg
Cover to The Know it All...
Author A. J. Jacobs
LanguageEnglish
Subject Encyclopædia Britannica
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication date
2004
Publication placeUnited States
Pages386 pp
ISBN 0-7432-5060-5
OCLC 55067170
031 22
LC Class AE5.E44 J33 2004

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World is a book by Esquire editor A. J. Jacobs, published in 2004. [1]

Contents

It recounts his experience of reading the entire Encyclopædia Britannica ; all 32 volumes of the 2002 edition, extending to over 33,000 pages with some 44 million words. He set out on this endeavour to become the "smartest person in the world". The book is organized alphabetically in encyclopedia format and recounts both interesting facts from the encyclopedia and the author's experiences.

It was a New York Times Best Seller. [2]

Reviews

The satirist P.J. O'Rourke said of it: "The Know-It-All is a terrific book. It's a lot shorter than the encyclopedia, and funnier, and you'll remember more of it. Plus, if it falls off the shelf onto your head, you'll live."

By contrast, Joe Queenan in The New York Times Book Review contended that much of which Jacobs reported as remarkable discoveries, e.g. the tale of Heloise and Abelard and the assassination of Marat by a woman, were already common knowledge among educated people. [3] Jacobs responded that "the ridiculously hyperbolic subtitle might have been a tip-off" of the book's ironic tone. [4]

Similar feats

A.J. Jacobs was not the first to read the entire Britannica. The earliest recorded example was Fath Ali, who upon becoming the Shah of Persia in 1797, was given a gift of the 3rd edition of the Britannica. After reading all of its 18 volumes, the Shah extended his royal title to include "Most Formidable Lord and Master of the Encyclopædia Britannica". [5] Roughly a century later, Amos Urban Shirk, an American businessman, read the entire 23-volume 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica over a period of four years. He then went on to read the entire 14th edition, spending on average three hours per night. [6]

Biographer Ashlee Vance claims Elon Musk read the Encyclopædia Britannica twice. [7]

Bill Gates read the entire World Book Encyclopedia in his youth. [8]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i> General knowledge encyclopaedia since 1768

The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elon Musk</span> South African-born businessman (born 1971)

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. He is also known for his ownership of X Corp., and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of January 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$421 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. J. Jacobs</span> American journalist and author

Arnold Stephen Jacobs Jr., commonly called A.J. Jacobs is an American journalist, author, and lecturer best known for writing about his lifestyle experiments. He is an editor at large for Esquire and has worked for the Antioch Daily Ledger and Entertainment Weekly.

Joe Queenan is an American satirist and critic. He is the author of nine books, including Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon and If You’re Talking to Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble. His memoir Closing Time was a 2009 New York Times Notable Book. 

X.com was an American online bank founded by Ed Ho, Harris Fricker, Elon Musk, and Christopher Payne in 1999 in Palo Alto, California. It merged with competitor Confinity in 2000 and the merged company changed its name to PayPal in 2001. Starting in 2023, the x.com internet domain name began to be used for Twitter, which was acquired by Elon Musk in 2022 and subsequently rebranded to X.

Amos Urban Shirk was an American businessman, author and reader of encyclopedias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashlee Vance</span> American journalist (born 1977)

Ashlee Vance is an American reporter, writer and filmmaker. He wrote a biography of Elon Musk, titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, that was released on May 19, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimbal Musk</span> South African-American entrepreneur (born 1972)

Kimbal James Musk is a South African-born Canadian and American businessman and restaurateur. He co-owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants in Colorado, Chicago, and Austin. He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across the United States. Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX; his brother Elon is the current CEO of both companies. He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Elon Musk, Tosca Musk, son of Errol and Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PayPal Mafia</span> Term for a group of former PayPal employees

The "PayPal Mafia" is a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and/or developed additional technology companies based in Silicon Valley, such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer. Most of the members attended Stanford University or University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at some point in their studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Encyclopedic knowledge</span> Extensive knowledge of a wide group of subjects

To have encyclopedic knowledge is to have "vast and complete" knowledge about a large number of diverse subjects. A person having such knowledge might, sometimes humorously be referred as "a human encyclopedia" or "a walking encyclopedia".

<i>Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future</i> 2015 book by Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future is Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk, published in 2015. The book traces Elon Musk's life from his childhood up to the time he spent at Zip2 and PayPal, and then onto SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. In the book, Vance interviews Musk, those close to him, and those who were with him at the most important points of his life; Musk had no control over the biography's contents.

Zip2 Corp. was a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California as Global Link Information Network, Inc. on November 9, 1995, by Greg Kouri and brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk. Initially, Global Link provided local businesses with an Internet presence, but later began to assist newspapers in designing online city guides before being purchased by Compaq Computer in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maye Musk</span> Canadian-South African model (born 1948)

Maye Musk is a model and dietitian. She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a Time magazine health edition, Women's Day, international editions of Vogue, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She is the mother of Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk. She holds Canadian, South African, and American citizenship. She is a registered dietitian and earned two masters degrees in diet and nutrition.

<i>Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start Up Bubble</i> Book by American journalist Daniel Lyons

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble is a book written by American author and journalist Daniel Lyons. The book describes the author's experiences working at the software company HubSpot and offers a sharp critique of the company's management and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Cantrell</span> American aerospace engineer

Jim Cantrell is an American entrepreneur, mechanical engineer and road racer. He is the CEO and co-founder of Phantom Space Corporation, which aims to build space transportation technology. After working at the French Space Agency CNES and the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, he worked as an independent consultant to aerospace companies for fifteen years and was on the founding teams of SpaceX and Moon Express. Cantrell was a consultant for SpaceX and Elon Musk's industry mentor when SpaceX launched in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Boring Company</span> American infrastructure and tunneling company

The Boring Company (TBC) is an American infrastructure, tunnel construction service, and equipment company founded by Elon Musk. TBC was founded as a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2017, and was spun off as a separate corporation in 2018. TBC has completed one tunneling project that is open to the public, as well as multiple test tunnels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">How to Make a Spaceship</span> Non-fiction book by Julian Guthrie

How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight is a 2016 non-fiction book by journalist Julian Guthrie about the origins of the X Prize Foundation and Peter Diamandis, the first X Prize, the Ansari X Prize and Anousheh Ansari, the entrants into that suborbital spaceflight competition, and the winning team, Mojave Aerospace Ventures of Vulcan Inc., Paul G. Allen, Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan, and their platform of Tier One of SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne.

Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp., and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.

The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.

The Musk family includes Maye Musk, a model and author; Errol Musk, a businessman and politician; their children Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk, and Tosca Musk, as well as nephew Lyndon Rive. Elon Musk's ex-wives are Justine Musk and Talulah Riley, and he has many children. Maye's father Joshua N. Haldeman was a notable chiropractor, aviator, and politician who was a well known proponent of Technocracy. Geographically, the family has roots in England, Canada, South Africa, and the United States of America.

References

  1. ↑ Jacobs, A. J. (10 October 2005). Amazon.com: The Know-It-All. ISBN   0743250621.
  2. ↑ Dust jacket of The Year of Living Biblically, a later book also by A.J. Jacobs
  3. ↑ Queenan, Joe (3 October 2004). "'The Know-It-All': A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Jacobs, A. J. (13 February 2005). "I Am Not a Jackass". The New York Times.
  5. ↑ Banquet at Guildhall in the City of London, Tuesday 15 October 1968: Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Encyclopædia Britannica and the 25th Anniversary of the Honorable William Benton as its Chairman and Publisher. United Kingdom: Encyclopædia Britannica International, Ltd. 1968.
  6. ↑ "Reader" . The New Yorker . March 3, 1934. p. 17.
  7. ↑ Vance, Ashlee. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future. Virgin Books (2015). ISBN   9780753555620. Afterthoughts by Ashlee Vance
  8. ↑ Guth, Robert A. (April 25, 2009). "Raising Bill Gates" . The Wall Street Journal .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.