Book · 2005
A Briefer History of Time
The 2005 rewrite with Leonard Mlodinow: clearer, updated, and far gentler on the beginner. The best entry point if the original defeated you.
Last updated 23 May 2026 · How we research
Book · 2005
A Briefer History of Time
Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow
The friendlier, updated rewrite of the classic, the best place to start.
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By the early 2000s, A Brief History of Time had been read, and half-read, by millions, and Hawking had heard the same feedback many times: parts of it were hard going. A Briefer History of Time, written in 2005 with the physicist Leonard Mlodinow, is his answer to that.
A friendlier route through the same territory
This is not a sequel so much as a careful reworking. It covers much of the same ground as the 1988 book, the Big Bang, the nature of space and time, black holes, the search for a theory of everything, but rewritten from the ground up to be clearer. The authors expand the explanations readers found most difficult, add helpful illustrations, and trim the passages that tended to lose people.
It is also updated. The intervening years had brought real developments in physics, and A Briefer History brings the story forward, giving more space to ideas such as string theory and the possibility of extra dimensions than the original could.
Who it's for
If you have always meant to read A Brief History of Time and never quite made it through, this is the book to pick up instead. It is the most beginner-friendly of Hawking's solo cosmology titles, and it sacrifices none of the wonder in becoming easier to follow. Readers who want the historic original should still reach for A Brief History of Time; everyone else may find this the better first encounter.