To paraphrase the great sci-fi writer Stephen King: Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your heart, kill your darlings. Translation: stay on point and mercilessly avoid side stories and anecdotes. With much respect for Mr. King, The History of Man Series is precisely that, a great deal about all those little darlings, a style of writing termed “jumping off.”

The Fifth History of Man has a few parting shots at viruses but mostly continues with the world of parasites, from tick disease that tick us off, Old Lyme, Connecticut and Lyme disease, toxoplasmosis, Crazy Cat Lady and her clowder of cats, then on into a discussion of the avatar of parasites: malaria. Our travels will venture down into the valley: Valley Girls, Valspeak, Valley Fever, fungus and fungal infections. We’ll jump into the biology of evolution, Darwin, Huxley and the great debates, the geology of earthquakes, volcanos, the Ring of Fire, and Johnny Cash, and then through the homos: Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens, and once the dust cleared how the opposable thumbs, walking erect, and bigger brains left one man standing, one woman, too. No discussion of human history can leave out the G.O.A.T. of French history, heck, of European history; the man, the legend, Napoleon Bonaparte, loved and admired by everyone, even his enemies. Our path will take us into war & military, World War I versus the 1918 Swine Flu, some Russian history and how Stalin got Lenin wrong.

The History of Man Series is written in a jumping off style, using medicine, disease, and health themes, fleeced of the normal jargon that all too often accompanies science narratives, as the foundation to jump off into history, world history, human history, American history, ancient history, biographies, celebrities and the rich and famous, the body, aging and longevity, science, biology and nature, physics, even some math thrown in, anatomy, a travel book of geology, geography, continents, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, South America, Australia, even the North Pole and South Pole, astronomy, the Universe and cosmos, war, politics, nature, art, music, romance, folklore, religion, the Bible, mythology, sports and athletes, weather, climate change and global warming, and maybe even some non-prescriptive self-help commentaries tossed in for good measure. For the print and eBook versions, comics interspersed to add some humor. And to add yet another twist to the writing style, another layer, each book showcases some personal anecdotes Dr. Bershof experienced during his life in medicine, a few biography sketches of suspense and thrillers that reveal a glimpse how the mind of a doctor works...or doesn’t work.

We’ll cherish all the darlings we encounter on our travels as they tell the tale of the humanity that remains eternal in all of us, in all its splendor and all its tragedy. All human activity and that of the Universe lies within our scope. Unlike Bryson’s wonderful book A Shorty History of Nearly Everything, a must-listen, this series makes no apologies for being a tome about nearly everything.