509. Natural sciences history, geographic treatment, and biography books

Further reading

Isaac Asimov Asimov’s Chronology of Science and Discovery, 1989.

Science didn’t develop in a vacuum and acclaimed twentieth-century popular science writer Isaac Asimov explores the relationship between science and society from their beginnings.

I. Bernard Cohen Revolution in Science, 1987.

Cohen’s book looks at the concept of revolution and how its meaning has evolved from changes, as in revolving seasons, to its more common meaning today of a radical overturning, as in a revolutionary war. By looking at the history of science and intellectual ideas, he determines the nature of scientific revolutions from the stages they go through and the creativity they require.

John Tresch The Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon, 2012.

While science and the arts may now seem at odds, this was not so in early nineteenth-century France. Science historian John Tresch explores the backlash against the mechanistic focus of the Enlightenment and how, rather than turning French thinkers against the machine, the movement provoked new views on the possibilities of technologies like steam engines and photography. This new way of seeing the machine influenced everything from positivism to literature.

For more information on these and other books in my Further Reading series, please see Further Reading: Start Here.

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