What would you do if you had a time machine that took you hundreds or thousands of years into the past ... and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on civilization's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? In How to Invent Everything, bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North answers all these questions so you don't have to. This guide contains all the science, engineering, mathematics, art, music, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless stranded time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. It will be one in which humanity matured quickly and efficiently, instead of spending 200,000 years stumbling around in the dark without language, not knowing that tying a rock to a string would unlock navigating the entire world, and thinking disease was caused by weird smells.