So, Want to Learn Science and Science History?
Science history is a wide and wild field, as a result it can be difficult to find books. Need inspiration for your next reading choice or a gift for science or history lovers in your life? Here are some of my personal favorites:
History of Astronomy and Space 🔭💫
The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy (James Evans)
This book is a bible for anyone interested in astronomical reconstruction projects
Challenge to Apollo:
The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974 (Asif A. Siddiqi)
The space race in Russia was wild, and this massive book is an authority like no other (it is also free on NASA's website!)
A Man on the Moon: The Voyagers of the Apollo Astronauts (Andrew Chaikin)
Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1961. Ever wonder what the 14 Apollo missions were up to?
Mission to Jupiter (Michael Meltzer)
*The* book on the history of the NASA/JPL Galileo Project
The Cassini-Huygens Visit to Saturn (Michael Meltzer)
An exhaustive history on the NASA and ESA (and ASI) Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, its rings, and landing on an alien moon
Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record (Carl Sagan, et al)
A personal account of the work to develop and launch the Golden Record
Longitude (Dava Sobel)
The wild story about the invention of chronometer and determining longitude at sea
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (Dava Sobel)
A detailed personal account of Galileo's life through the correspondence with his eldest daughter
History of Physics 🔍🧲
Basic Optics and Optical Instruments (Naval Education and Training Program Development Center)
Might not look like much but this is perhaps the single best book I’ve ever read about optics
Great Experiments in Physics: Firsthand Accounts from Galileo to Einstein (Morris H. Shamos)
An annotated history of physics through 25 of of its most incredible experiments
Libyan Sands: Travel in a Dead World (Ralph A. Bagnold)
Personal account of Bagnold exploring Saharan desert and developing the study of sand science
The Bastard Brigade (Sam Kean)
"The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb"
Midnight in Chernobyl (Adam Higginbotham)
A haunting historical account of the Chernobyl disaster
The Cartoon Guide to Physics (Larry Gonick)
A delightful cartoon guide to physics
History of Medicine 🦠🧪
Scurvy (Stephen R. Bown)
A engrossing history about how "a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen" finally thwarted scurvy at sea
The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson)
A non-fiction thriller which follows the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak in London
The Poisoner's Handbook (Deborah Blum)
The birth of forensic science in New York
The Doctor Who Fooled the World (Brian Deer)
A book as exceptionally well-written and researched as the history is frustrating
A Taste for Poison (Neil Bradbury)
The dose makes the poison. A toxicologist breakdown of the history and chemistry of the world's most notorious poisons and life-changing medicines
The Poison Squad (Deborah Blum)
One chemist's crusade to protect the health of America at the turn of the century that would eventually grow into the FDA
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons (Sam Kean)
An enthralling history of the sometimes traumatic history of neuroscience
The Hot Zone (Richard Preston)
The terrifying true story behind the discovery and study of Ebola. Viruses are ancient and unthinking and humans are meat
History of Mathematics 🧮📐
Heavenly Mathematics (Glen Van Brummelen)
A marvelous book which covers the forgotten math of spherical trigonometry, mostly ignored since the 1970’s
The Cartoon Guide to Algebra (Larry Gonick)
The wonderfully delightful cartoon guide to algebra
The Cartoon Guide to Calculus (Larry Gonick)
The excellent and in-depth cartoon guide to calculus
The Cartoon Guide to Geometry (Larry Gonick)
Cartoons are a lovely way to understand geometry intuitively
The Cartoon Guide to Statistics (Larry Gonick and Woollcott Smith)
A handy guide to understanding statistics visually
History of Biology, Chemistry, and Genetics 🔬🧬
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature (Erwin Chargaff)
A personal favorite, a deeply enthralling view of science and life and history from the man who discovered the base-pairing rule of DNA
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (James D. Watson)
Watson is a lot of things (*derogatory*) but he is certainly a wonderful writer
Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling (Thomas Hager)
A deep history of a fascinating and brilliant chemist that defined the 20th century
The Periodic Table: A Memoir (Primo Levi)
The Royal Institution voted this to be the best science book ever written, for good reason
Cartoon Guide to Genetics (Larry Gonick)
A cute cartoon guide to understanding genetics
The Disappearing Spoon (Sam Kean)
The wild stories in history related to the Periodic Table
The Violinist's Thumb (Sam Kean)
An anthology of captivating stories in history related to genetics
Caesar’s Last Breath (Sam Kean)
A collection of gripping (often funny) stories related to air, its history and science
Dinner with King Tut (Sam Kean)
What does history taste like? Smell like? Sound like?
History of the Meteorology 🌪️⛅
The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds (Gavin Pretor-Pinney)
Clouds come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes that can deeply inform us about our world's weather
Weather in the Courtroom: Memoirs from a Career in Forensic Meteorology (William H. Haggard)
Former director of NOAA's memoir on what can best be described as "Forensic Meteorology"
History of the Natural World 🌿🐀
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (Steve Brusatte)
A riveting book telling the story of dinosaurs in a way I've rarely seen rivaled
Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution (Edey & Johanson)
A personal account and history of human paleontology in Africa
Lucy's Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor (Johanson & Shreeve)
A famed paleontologist finds a 2 million year old bone in the desert, and rewrites all of human history
History of Scientific Ethics (or Lack Thereof) ⚖️🕊️
The Icepick Surgeon (Sam Kean)
A must-read to understand the important of scientific ethics
Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector (Amit Katwala)
A wild history of the invention and misuse of the lie detector
How to Lie with Statistics (Darrell Huff)
Required reading for anyone who wants to understand how math can be biased and misinterpreted
Podcasts
- The Disappearing Spoon: A science history podcast with Sam Kean
- Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine
- Nature Podcast: Meet the scientists behind the results and papers with in-depth analysis
Theses I Enjoyed
- The Coastal Geomorphology of Titan’s Lakes & Seas (Una Schneck)
- Navigation on Wood, Wooden Navigational Instruments 1590-1731: An analysis of early modern western instruments for celestial navigation, their origins, mathematical concepts and accuracies (Nicolas de Hilster)
- Improving instruments: equatoria, astrolabes, and the practices of monastic astronomy in late medieval England (Seb Falk)