Here are 100 books that What Happened in History? fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m a research physicist working in fusion energy and astrophysics. To explain our work, I’ve had to overcome the misconceptions about science that are widespread in the media and among the general population. These books are the best ones I know to correct the mystification of science, especially of topics like quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and cosmology.
OK, maybe it’s funny to recommend a book that sold in the millions. But this, and the TV series that went along with it, remains the best explanation of the evolution of astronomy and, especially, the social context for that evolution. Carl Sagan is by far the best science popularizer of the past century.
* Spacecraft missions to nearby planets * The Library of ancient Alexandria * The human brain * Egyptian hieroglyphics * The origin of life * The death of the sun * The evolution of galaxies * The origins of matter, suns and worlds
The story of fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution transforming matter and life into consciousness, of how science and civilisation grew up together, and of the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science. A story told with Carl Sagan's remarkable ability to make scientific ideas both comprehensible and exciting.
I’m a research physicist working in fusion energy and astrophysics. To explain our work, I’ve had to overcome the misconceptions about science that are widespread in the media and among the general population. These books are the best ones I know to correct the mystification of science, especially of topics like quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and cosmology.
This groundbreaking work, published posthumously, is the first attempt to explain consciousness as the product of the evolutionary process. In doing this, Teilhard de Chardin outlines many characteristics of the evolutionary process that have never been described before. It is his effort to unite evolutionary theory, a Marxist view of evolution, and….Christianity.
The final chapter trying to drag Christ into this scientific work did not impress me, but it does not detract from the earlier chapters either.
Visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect, and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile religion with the scientific theory of evolution. In this timeless book, which contains the quintessence of his thought, Teilhard argues that just as living organisms sprung from inorganic matter and evolved into ever more complex thinking beings, humans are evolving toward an "omega point"—defined by Teilhard as a convergence with the Divine.
I’m a research physicist working in fusion energy and astrophysics. To explain our work, I’ve had to overcome the misconceptions about science that are widespread in the media and among the general population. These books are the best ones I know to correct the mystification of science, especially of topics like quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and cosmology.
This best explains why the dominant ideas in the popular version of science are wrong and why the right ideas make sense. Prigogine, a Nobel Laureate, and his colleague philosopher Isabelle Stengers show that the popular notions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, time, and determinism don’t correspond to scientific observations.
These wrong notions lead to paradoxes that make it impossible for scientists to understand such basic phenomena as human consciousness, which makes all science possible. Instead, the authors lay out an evolutionary approach, validated by much research, that shows how time, evolution, and reality can be understood without mysticism.
Order Out of Chaos is a sweeping critique of the discordant landscape of modern scientific knowledge. In this landmark book, Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine and acclaimed philosopher Isabelle Stengers offer an exciting and accessible account of the philosophical implications of thermodynamics. Prigogine and Stengers bring contradictory philosophies of time and chance into a novel and ambitious synthesis. Since its first publication in France in 1978, this book has sparked debate among physicists, philosophers, literary critics and historians.
I’m a research physicist working in fusion energy and astrophysics. To explain our work, I’ve had to overcome the misconceptions about science that are widespread in the media and among the general population. These books are the best ones I know to correct the mystification of science, especially of topics like quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and cosmology.
Gamow, one of the greatest popularizers of science and a leading nuclear researcher, clearly describes for non-scientific audiences the drama of the early evolution of quantum theory.
For those who think, based on current popularization, that quantum mechanics is akin to mysticism, this book shows how the quantum debates evolved in real life. Gamow, unlike current popularizers, does not assume that the debates have been resolved in favor of some nonsensical obscurantism.
"Dr. Gamow, physicist and gifted writer, has sketched an intriguing portrait of the scientists and clashing ideas that made the quantum revolution." — Christian Science Monitor In 1900, German physicist Max Planck postulated that light, or radiant energy, can exist only in the form of discrete packages or quanta. This profound insight, along with Einstein's equally momentous theories of relativity, completely revolutionized man's view of matter, energy, and the nature of physics itself. In this lucid layman's introduction to quantum theory, an eminent physicist and noted popularizer of science traces the development of quantum theory from the turn of the…
A childhood friend says that I am the only person he knows who grew up to be exactly what he said he wanted to become. But he is mistaken because I was born a scientist. I have no memories when I was not thinking about science, learning it, doing it, teaching it, trying to improve it, pondering it, or sharing it with others. Over my life and career as a scientist, I have been further fulfilled by undergirding my scientific work with reflection and introspection through reading the history, philosophy, and practice of science revealed and disclosed in books like the five I recommend here. Enjoy them as I have!
Though I have been a scientist for nearly all of my life, as a student and as a professional, not until I read this book did I understand what an amazing human activity science is. I had never imagined a world without the word or practice of “science” or even “scientist,” as I do now because of this captivating book.
Wootton’s book is more than a history of how humankind invented and developed one of its most powerful tools. It also reveals the many simply exquisite workings of that tool over the centuries. After pondering its many remarkable revelations, interconnections, and insights, even as a scientist, my appreciation of the significance of science and scientists in the world has re-blossomed.
We live in a world made by science. How and when did this happen? This book tells the story of the extraordinary intellectual and cultural revolution that gave birth to modern science, and mounts a major challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy of its history.
Before 1492 it was assumed that all significant knowledge was already available; there was no concept of progress; people looked for understanding to the past not the future. This book argues that the discovery of America demonstrated that new knowledge was possible: indeed it introduced the very concept of 'discovery', and opened the way to the…
In Denmark, I teach at the Center for Videnskabsstudier.“Videnskabsstudier” is often translated as Science Studies.It thus connotes a rather broad field, which includes philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of science.And the notion of “videnskab”, which is frequently translated as science is interpreted rather broadly, to include, in addition to the natural science, the social sciences, and the humanities, indeed, basically any field one might study at a university. In fact, my own research intersects with and is influenced by research in all these fields.
Shapin makes the audacious claim that there never really was a scientific revolution in Early Modern Europe, despite the fact that “the scientific revolution” has been a central organizing idea in the history of science and the history of Western culture more generally.
His provocative book provides a useful and engaging assessment of the utility of the concept of “the scientific revolution” for making sense of developments in the history of science. He challenges us to think about the place of radical changes in the history of science, and whether the claims scientists make about such changes are merely rhetorical constructions.
Despite Shapin’s arguments, I am inclined to think something very significant happened in the sciences in the 16th and 17th Centuries, something that deserves to be called “revolutionary”. But Shapin’s book will certainly make readers reflect on what they mean by scientific revolution.
"There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it." With this provocative and apparently paradoxical claim, Steven Shapin begins his bold vibrant exploration of early modern science. In this classic of science history, Shapin takes into account the culture - the variety of beliefs, practices, and influences - that in the 1600s shaped the origins of the modern scientific worldview.
In an ideal world, I would have liked to be a cosmologist and a philosopher. But I became a philosopher with a passion for the history and philosophy of science. This has enabled me to kill two birds with one stone: I learn about the sciences that interest me (physics, evolutionary biology, political philosophy, and sociology), and I explore their philosophical consequences. My podcast, In the Beginning, there was…Philosophy is devoted to such topics.
I appreciate this book because it provides an excellent historical overview of an important aspect of science, i.e., the occurrence of scientific revolutions from the 17th to the 20th century, and it does not include psychoanalysis.
Cohen’s book proposes an interesting "theory" of scientific revolutions which inspired me to develop a philosophical model of scientific revolutions, which I dubbed the "chain-of-reasoning" model.
Cohen was a renowned historian of science. His book is very well written and does not require technical knowledge of particular theories. It is very long but it can be studied selectively.
Only a scholar as rich in learning as I. Bernard Cohen could do justice to a theme so subtle and yet so grand. Spanning five centuries and virtually all of scientific endeavor, Revolution in Science traces the nuances that differentiate both scientific revolutions and human perceptions of them, weaving threads of detail from physics, mathematics, behaviorism, Freud, atomic physics, and even plate tectonics and molecular biology, into the larger fabric of intellectual history.
How did "revolution," a term from the physical sciences, meaning a turning again and implying permanence and recurrence-the cyclical succession of the seasons, the "revolutions" of the…
My research and writing in the field of emergency or disaster management has been focused on the concept of hazard mitigation. This means reducing the impact of disasters, the creation of hazard resilient and sustainable communities, and the application of scientific and technical expertise to the task. We all live in a world where it has become more important than ever to make intelligent decisions driven by a comprehension of the properties of the physical universe. It is also a world in which economic self-interest and political interests may impede that idealistic goal. I have a sense of urgency about reducing the efficacy of such impediments.
We are living in a time when ideology, myth, superstition, and ignorance seem to have more influence than ever in shaping our future.
This excellent and important book by Shawn Otto explains the forces (political and economic) at work that are aimed at undermining the role that knowledge and rational empirical evidence might play in making rational public policy decisions. This includes the effort to weaken the role that science might ideally play in helping us to address real-world challenges.
As one who studies and seeks to assess disaster preparedness, response, and mitigation, I have come to believe this “war” on science holds the potential to give birth to ever greater and more expensive (especially in terms of human costs) disasters.
Winner of the MN Book Award for Nonfiction. "Wherever the people are well informed," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "they can be trusted with their own government." But what happens when they are not? In every issue of modern society--from climate change to vaccinations, transportation to technology, health care to defense--we are in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of scientific progress and a simultaneous expansion of danger. At the very time we need them most, scientists and the idea of objective knowledge are being bombarded by a vast, well-funded, three-part war on science: the identity politics war on science, the ideological…
I was once an academic philosopher, but I found it too glamorous and well-paid so I became a novelist and private intellectual mentor instead. I wroteYou Are Herebecause I love whatscience knows, but an interest in howscience knows drew me into the philosophy of science, where a puzzle lurks. Scientists claim that the essence of their craft is captured in a 17th Century formula, “the scientific method”... and in a 20th Century litmus test, “falsifiability.” Philosophers claim that these two ideas are (a) both nonsense and (b) in any case mutually contradictory. So what’s going on?
Few people have ideas of world-shattering originality; fewer still explain them in prose so limpid that the rest of us can follow the argument. I love receiving that gift in almost anything I read by Galileo. His writing also reminds us at every turn that great science—as his art much later came to be called—depends not just on those trite "observe, hypothesise, collect data..." recipes but, crucially, on thinking creatively about concepts. There's a man in full here, too: almost supernaturally brilliant, but also witty, defensive, cutting, proud, delighted, fearful, irascible. Of all people, of all time, he's on my top ten "wish I could have met" list.
'Philosophy is written in this great book which is continually open before our eyes - I mean the universe...'
Galileo's astronomical discoveries changed the way we look at the world, and our place in the universe. Threatened by the Inquisition for daring to contradict the literal truth of the Bible, Galileo ignited a scientific revolution when he asserted that the Earth moves. This generous selection from his writings contains all the essential texts for a reader to appreciate his lasting significance. Mark Davie's new translation renders Galileo's vigorous Italian prose into clear modern English, while William R. Shea's version of…
I’m a myth-busting feminist neuroscientist waging a campaign against the rigid gender stereotypes that govern so much of our lives and set so many onto unfulfilling paths. Seeing how often the brain gets dragged into explanations for gender gaps, I put my neuroscience hat on to check back through science and through history to find the truth behind the idea that female brains were different (aka inferior) and that their owners were therefore incompetent and incapable. What a myth! Nowhere does this play out more clearly than in the history of women in science, as shown by the books on this list.
If you know anyone who still holds on to the belief that science can operate in a political vacuum, please thrust this book upon them! In 1673, a brave philosopher called Francois Poullain de la Barre publicly observed that he saw no reason why women could not be treated as the equals of men in all spheres of influence, including science. The Mind has no Sex, he declared! In this wonderfully readable book on the history of women in science, Londa Schiebinger shows us just how that belief played out. Track the jaw-dropping arrogance of science’s male gatekeepers as they systematically used every trick in their power to exclude women, weaponising their biology against them (Blame the Brain!), demeaning and downgrading their annoyingly evident talents. This book will make you angry – and so it should!
As part of his attempt to secure a place for women in scientific culture, the Cartesian Francois Poullain de la Barre asserted as long ago as 1673 that "the mind has no sex." In this rich and comprehensive history of women's contributions to the development of early modern science, Londa Schiebinger examines the shifting fortunes of male and female equality in the sphere of the intellect. Schiebinger counters the "great women" mode of history and calls attention to broader developments in scientific culture that have been obscured by time and changing circumstance. She also elucidates a larger issue: how gender…
