Suggested reads (also views & listens)

BOOKS

1. Anthony Aveni, People and the Sky: Our Ancestors and the Cosmos (Thames & Hudson, 2008) @alun
2. Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (Doubleday, 2003) @LizzyCampbell, @matthew542, @adam_wu
3. Bill Bryson (ed), Seeing Further: the Story of Science and the Royal Society (HarperPress, 2010) @kelltrill
4. Stuart Clark, The Sun Kings: the Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began (Princeton UP, 2007) @DrStuClark
5. Clifford D. Conner, A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and "Low Mechanics" (Nation Books, 2005) @darwinsbulldog (NB without having read)
6. Martin Davis, The Universal Computer: the Road from Leibniz to Turing (W.W. Norton & Co, 2000) @CRMcFarland
7. Richard Dawkins (ed), The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (OUP, 2008) @kelltrill
8. Richard Dunn, The Telescope: a Short History (National Maritime Museum, 2009) @ali_boyle
9. Editors of Scientific American and John Rennie, Science Desk Reference (John Wiley & Sons, 1999) @kelltrill
10. Peter Galison, Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps (Sceptre, 2003) @aaronswright
11. John Gribbin, Science: a History, 1543-2001 (Allen Lane, 2002) @LizzyCampbell, @montejon
12. James Hannam, God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science (Icon Books, 2009) @kelltrill
13. Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The History of Time: a Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2005) @alun
14. Richard Holmes, Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (HarperPress, 2008) @LizzyCampbell
15. Sarah E. Igo, Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Harvard UP, 2008) @aarsonswright
16. Lisa Jardine, The Curious Life of Robert Hooke (HarperCollins, 2003) @LizzyCampbel
17. Steven Johnson, The Invention of Air: an Experiment, a New Country and the Amazing Force of Scientific Discovery (Riverhead Hardcover, 2008/ Penguin , 2009) @darwinsbulldog (NB without having read)
18. Steve Jones, Coral: a Pessimist in Paradise (Little, Brown & Co, 2007) @montejon
19. Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: a History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (Macmillan, 1959, new ed. Penguin, 1989) @montejon
20. Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: a Story of Violent Faith (Pan, 2004) @chrissasaki
21. Thomas J. Misa, Leonardo to the Internet: Technology and Culture from the Renaissance to the Present (Johns Hopkins, 2004) @aaronswright
22. Diane Paul, Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (Humanity Books, 1995) @aaronswright
23. Roy Porter (ed), Man Masters Nature: Twenty-Five Centuries of Science (BBC Books, 1987) @Mr_Considerate
24. Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer: the Terrifying Truth About the Threat from Bioterrorism (Headline Book Publishing, 2003) @chrissasaki
25. David Quammen, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: an Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (W. W. Norton & Co, 2006) @darwinsbulldog, @chrissasaki
26. Jessica Riskin, Science in the Age of Sensibility: the Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment (Chicago UP, 2002) @CEMcFarland (from a history buff friend)
27. Callum Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea (Gaia Books, 2007) @SFriedScientist
28. Scientific American and Rodney Carlisle, Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries: All the Milestones in Ingenuity from the Discovery of Fire to the Invention of the Microwave Oven (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) @kelltrill
29. Simon Singh, Fermat's Last Theorem: the Story of a Riddle that Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years (Fourth Estate, 1997), Simon Singh, Fermat's Enigma: the Spic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem (Anchor Books, 1998) @LizzyCampbell, @chrissasaki
30. Simon Singh, The Code Book: the Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography (Fourth Estate, 1999/Anchor Books, 2000) @chrissasaki
31. Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Macmillan, 2010) @chrissasaki
32. Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: the Friends who Made the Future, 1730-1810 (Faber, 2002) @LizzyCampbell, @theselflessmeme
33. Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch:a Story of Evolution in Our Time (Vintage Books, 1995, 2002) @chrissasaki

Another vote from @LizzyCampbell went to David Bodanis, although she did not say which, if any book, was her favourite. @theselflessmeme also gave general shouts out for Roy Porter and Mike Jay.

BOOK SERIES

1. Revolutions in Science Series (Icon Books), edited by Jon Turney @alicebell, @jonWturney
   

• Jon Agar, Turing and the Universal Machine: the Making of the Modern Computer (2001)
• Andrew Gregory, Eureka! The Birth of Science (2001)
• Andrew Gregory, Harvey's Heart: the Discovery of Blood Circulation (2001)
• John Henry, Moving Heaven and Earth: Copernicus and the Solar System (2001)
• Kim Sterelny, Dawkins vs Gould: Survival of the Fittest (2001)
• Patricia Fara, An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment (2002)
• John Henry, Knowledge is Power: Francis Bacon and the Method of Science (2002)
• Stephen Pumfrey, Latitude and the Magnetic Earth (2002)
• Jon Agar, Constant Touch: a Global History of the Mobile Phone (2003)
• Jeff Hughes, The Manhatten Project: Big Science and the Atom Bomb (2003)
• Patricia Fara, Sex, Botany and Empire: the Story of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks (2004)
• Andrew Nahum, Frank Whittle: Invention of the Jet (2004)
• John Waller, The Discovery of the Germ (2004)
• Patricia Fara, Fatal Attraction: Magnetic Mysteries of the Enlightenment (2005)
• Steve Fuller, Kuhn vs Popper: the Struggle for the Soul of Science (2006)

RADIO/PODCASTS

1. How to Think About Science (CBC Radio, 2008) @aaronswright
2. The Bottom Line (CBC Radio, 2010) @aaronswright
3. David Suzuki Foundation Podcast (2008) @aaronswright
   
   

TV

1. Rosalind Franklin: DNA's Dark Lady (BBC TV, 2006) @aaronswright
   

GOOD, popular history of science

@ali_boyle Re good popular histsci, there's Richard's book of course!


@aaronswright while it's on my mind: bbc doc. on ros. franklin http://bbc.in/bw2OPh

@aaronswright it's a great series: cbc "ideas" has some other sci shows in the arc. Also Susuki: http://bit.ly/9J4lrz http://bit.ly/doNOY7

@aaronswright Diane Paul controlling human heredity. Misa Leonardo to the Internet is host of tech. Good but skip last chapter

@aaronswright galison's einstein's clocks is semi-pop. So is Sarah Igo the averaged american

@aaronswright CBC radio series "how to think about science" free podcasts on web or itunes


@DrStuClark Cheeky suggestion: my own book The Sun Kings. Lots of Greenwich in the later chapters. http://bit.ly/aptCb4 :)


@montejon also Arthur Koestler's 'Sleepwalkers' (at the complex end of 'popular'). 'Coral' by Steve Jones is very enjoyable too.

@montejon I found Science: A History 1543 - 2001 by John Gribbin a good grounding when I was studying #histsci with the OU...



@kelltrill No problem. Some of them chart the history of inventions from the wheel to the atom bomb. Others take a more in depth look at the more involved questions lay people might ask, so they're excellent reference works and are not inaccessible for the everyday person. Check them out on Amazon :)

@kelltrill Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries – Rodney Carlisle & Scientific American; God’s Philosophers – James Hannam

@kelltrill Scientific American: Science Desk Reference – Editors of Scientific American & John Rennie

@kelltrill The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing – Richard Dawkins; Seeing Further – Bill Bryson


@CEMcFarland For a good history of the math behind computer science, see 'The Universal Computer' by Martin Davis.

@CEMcFarland This one comes recommended from a history buff friend. http://twitpic.com/2kpxm4


@chrissasaki Very recent history: Beak of the Finch, Weiner; on the fringe but NB in my "science library": Under the Banner of Heaven, Krakauer

@chrissasaki Fermat’s Enigma/Code Book, Singh; Immortal Life of H. Lacks, Skloot; Reluctant Mr. Darwin, Quammen; Demon in Freezer, Preston


@adam_wu - Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. #histsci


@jonWturney not mine, and some of them weren't, and the series tailed off... but fun while it lasted! USP was authors real historians

@jonWturney Icon's Revolutions in Science (I know...) series, which I edited were all pretty good :) List too long to tweet.



@matthew542 A Short History of Nearly Everything. - Bill Bryson


@darwinsbulldog How 'bout (another I haven't read) A People's History of Science? http://amzn.to/dmbKcV

@darwinsbulldog I haven't read it yet, but what of Steven Johnson's "The Invention of Air"?

@darwinsbulldog Quammen's Reluctant Mr. Darwin, except it keeps notion Darwin was scared of religious backlash, long delay van Wyhe disposes of


@SFriedScientist the unnatural history of the sea and Trawler


@theselflessmeme Excellent! Maybe current political climate will stimulate new approaches to, and uses of, history of science.

@theselflessmeme I think (perhaps naively) that a little presentism is no bad thing. If historians don't do it, someone else (politicians?) will.

@theselflessmeme I think so. Maybe C18 gives licence to be both presentist and historicist (a la Stocking), which is basis of popular history?

@theselflessmeme Theme occurring: something about C18 (nat. phil./early capitalism) that lends itself to popular history writing?

@theselflessmeme Excellent. Well I guess Roy Porter was No. 1 at this. Mike Jay seems to be pretty good at it too.

@theselflessmeme Still seeking recommendations? I love Jenny Uglow's 'The Lunar Men' - academically rigorous but really enjoyable to read.


@alun Holford-Strevens VSI The History of Time for Horology.

@alun Is Anthony Aveni history-ish enough for you or too anthropological? People and the Sky is pretty good.


@LizzyCampbell also, just got home so looking at my shelf - forgot David Bodanis, Uglow's The Lunar Men, & Jardine's book on Hooke. :P

@LizzyCampbell I suspect the interest in his of sic comes from learning about the science - was my route in :)

@LizzyCampbell Simon Singh - Fermat's Last Theorem, Richard Holmes - Age of Wonders, Bryson - Short History..., John Gribbin - Science: a history


@alicebell it was edited by someone with PhD from Manc CHoSTM (& expert in pop sci) with contributions from Agar, Fara, Hughes. Better? :)

@alicebell Steve Fuller might argue this is partly to do with HPS's approach to narrative...? More practically: Icon's "Rev in Sci" series?

@alicebell sorry, I do appreciate you are taking +ve approach here, but lack of reflexivity in STS and HPS outreach really bugs me.

@alicebell would it be rude of me to suggest historians of sci complaining about popularisation just read some of their own stuff on topic?


@Mr_Considerate Man Masters Nature: 25 Centuries of Science, Roy Porter, ed.