Mark Bergin

Brief text, sidebars, labeled illustrations, and humorous cartoons describe what it would be like to live without libraries, explaining how these places and their collections of written words allow us to check our facts, find important information, share stories and ideas, build communities, and learn valuable life skills.

Brief text, sidebars, labeled illustrations, and humorous cartoons describe what it would be like to live without trees, explaining how they provide us with fuel, food and shelter.

Brief text, sidebars, labeled illustrations, and humorous cartoons describe what it would be like to live without soap, explaining the history and the science of soap, and how it has revolutionized our lives.

Brief text, sidebars, labeled illustrations, and humorous cartoons describe what it would be like to live without simple machines, explaining how simple machines enable a lot of things around us to work, allowing us to travel in wheeled vehicles, lift heavy objects, put things together, and take things apart.

Describes some of the benefits fire has afforded, including the ability to cook food, make pottery and metals, and invent the steam and internal combustion engines.