In America, alas, beauty has become something you drive to, and nature an either/or proposition--either you ruthlessly subjugate it, as at Tocks Dam and a million other places, or you deify it, treat it as something holy and remote, a thing apart, as along the Appalachian Trail. Seldom would it occur to anyone on either side that people and nature could coexist to their mutual benefit--that, say, a more graceful bridge across the Delaware River might actually set off the grandeur around it, or that the AT might be more interesting and rewarding if it wasn't all wilderness, if from time to time it purposely took you past grazing cows and till fields.

Eventually living in North Yorkshire and mainly working as a journalist Bryson became chief copy editor of the business section of The Times and then deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent. ) (1999)
Down Under (UK) / In a Sunburned Country (U. "
In November 2006 Bryson interviewed the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the state of science and education.

He received widespread recognition again with the publication of A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) which popularised scientific questions for a general audience. Bryson shot to prominence in the United Kingdom with the publication of Notes From A Small Island (1995) an exploration of Britain for which he made an accompanying television series. Born an American he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before returning to the US in 1995.