Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is pretty spectacular. He takes a travel writer's eye to the history of science and puts together an incredibly accessible and compelling tour.
Thumbs up fir Bryson. To take it a step further, Boorstin's "The Discoverers" is a longer, more encompassing version of scientific discoveries.
Also, "Empires of Light" is a great chronology of events and people(Tesla, Edison, Westinghouse, JP Morgan) leading to the modern, electric world.
One more, "The Idea Factory" is a history of Bell Labs. It is surprisingly light on programming but makes up for it in the hardware/electronics topics.
"Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology is a history of science by Isaac Asimov, written as the biographies of over 1500 scientists."
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 43.7 ms ] threadOstensibly its about the steam engine, but the idea referenced in the title is really patents.
Also, "Empires of Light" is a great chronology of events and people(Tesla, Edison, Westinghouse, JP Morgan) leading to the modern, electric world.
One more, "The Idea Factory" is a history of Bell Labs. It is surprisingly light on programming but makes up for it in the hardware/electronics topics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov's_Biographical_Encyclop...
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