A Little History of Science (Little Histories)

A Little History of Science

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We focus on individuals, we use quotations and maybe even occasionally slightly creative writing about smells or sounds or other things that you can infer from historical sources. For example, in all my books I see if I can find out what the weather was like on a particular day, to see whether that can add to my description, for example when a particular meeting at the Royal Society took place in the 17th century.

That helped to set the scene before I went on to what was actually discussed. I think professionally trained historians—who amaze me by their ability to integrate very complex issues—may miss out on that simpler detail which the ordinary reader enjoys. You know where the beginning is, you know where the ending is.

This is quite an academic book.

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Why did you choose it? Yes, this is a purely academic book—although the writing is not. I needed to understand some of the earliest studies into brain function, in particular those by Galen, who did a series of remarkable and extremely distressing experiments proving that the brain controlled movement.

These were public events, not laboratory studies. This is something Stephen Shapin talks about—scientists have to find a way of convincing other people that their results are valid. Galen did his experiments in front of an audience to prove to the great and the good that the brain, not the heart, controlled movement. These experiments were on live pigs, and were extremely distressing. I was both horrified and astonished by the audacity of Galen and by the power of what he showed.

The argument lives on in our language and in our thinking, a kind of intellectual fossil. This book shocked me by showing what an amazing thinker Galen was.

In fact, Galen wrote on all sorts of areas, not just medicine. He was a leading philosopher of the first and second century AD and he had a fantastic library—much of which has been lost, sadly.

A little history of little histories

Get the weekly Five Books newsletter. One explanation is that he found the experiments extremely distressing. This raises a general question about our morality and that of people in the past. Surely these people must have been heartless beasts — how could they go along and watch Christians being thrown to lions or people hacking each other to death? And yet, of course, they were fundamentally no different from us. That seems to be a theme through a lot of your books: Yes, science is part of culture and is affected by other aspects of society.

The metaphors that we use to explain things are taken from culture and, in particular, from technology. I try to describe scientific problems as people saw them at the time, without the benefit of modern knowledge. In the books I have written I describe people in the past who are struggling, either in a scientific context or, in the case of my books about the French Resistance, in a military-political context. What attracted you to each of these stories? I really wanted to write a biography about him but it became apparent that no publisher—not even an academic one—was interested.

Then I thought about a popular science book, focussing on one aspect of his work, which was about the importance of eggs in what we now call reproduction. The book is about the discovery of egg and sperm but it also extends into ideas about where animals like insects come from. When I write I try to put myself back at the time and to understand the choices that people made—whether they were political choices about what they were going to do, moral choices in the case of war, or scientific choices. Also, in the case of science, why people believed the apparently outrageous things they did.

How could these very clever people believe things that we now consider to be so palpably untrue? How did we get to where we understand things today? What was the process? To do that, you need to try and reconstruct what people thought; one of the ways of doing that is to banish all the words and concepts which come from later on.

I was very fortunate and lived for 18 years in Paris.

I went with absolutely awful French and ended up pretty much bilingual. Words and thoughts are interconnected. Does it make you more humble about the belief that we have now, having that perspective on the past? On the one hand I am very confident that I know what I know! However there are massive challenges ahead. So at the macro and the micro level, our ignorance is profound! Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date.

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We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview. This site has an archive of more than one thousand interviews, or five thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week. Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases. Save for later Kindle. Jerry Coyne on Evolution Books. Steven Pincus on The Glorious Revolution. Martin Kemp on Leonardo da Vinci Books. Murray Pittock on Jacobitism Books. Philippa Levine on Eugenics Books.

Andrew Briggs on Nature of Reality Books. It delves beneath the surface of the planet, charts the evolution of chemistry's periodic table, introduces the physics that explain electricity, gravity, and the structure of atoms. It recounts the scientific quest that revealed the DNA molecule and opened unimagined new vistas for exploration. Emphasizing surprising and personal stories of scientists both famous and unsung, A Little History of Science traces the march of science through the centuries. The book opens a window on the exciting and unpredictable nature of scientific activity and describes the uproar that may ensue when scientific findings challenge established ideas.

With delightful illustrations and a warm, accessible style, this is a volume for young and old to treasure together. The Best Books of Check out the top books of the year on our page Best Books of Product details Format Paperback pages Dimensions x x Looking for beautiful books? Visit our Beautiful Books page and find lovely books for kids, photography lovers and more. Other books in this series. A Little History of the World E. Review quote "One advantage of a brief history is that this impressive roll of modern achievements unfolds while the leaps of prior centuries are still fresh in mind.

That juxtaposition of what we know now verses what we knew then is breathtaking to contemplate. In Mr Bynum's telling, a little history goes a long way. Yet, the contents of the book are somewhat similar to a world history survey covering prehistory up through World War II even though Gombrich does not try to cover every event.

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This delightful book was originally written in German in The long-lived author translated the book himself and added the final chapter covering WWII toward the end of his life. To his credit, in that final chapter he corrects some of his earlier comments based on things he learned or experienced in the interim.

Despite the title, this book is probably too advanced for young children; it would probably be best as a read aloud for those in upper elementary and for independent reading by junior high and older students. And it's not strictly a children's book.

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Adults will find it a refreshingly interesting way to brush up on world history. Gombrich begins with a chapter about the earth being millions of years old and follows with a chapter on cavemen and a retelling of the popular prehistory. Some families might want to begin with chapter three where he begins with verifiable history. Chapters cover all of the major ancient civilizations including the Hebrews. The Chinese get a good bit of attention although Japan, India, Africa, and others are only treated in reference to western civilization. After the fall of Rome, things speed up as Gombrich hits the major highlights through the rest of world history up through WWII.

The author's perspective is a bit different than most of us are used to. He grew up in Vienna, Austria and moved to England as Hitler came into power. He seems to have no strong religious perspective, but he does speak respectfully of religions in general.

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