Popular Science Review - Science, A History

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Review - Science, A History [The Scientists] - John Gribbin

John Gribbin is probably the best-known living UK popularizer of science, and if anyone was to take on this mammoth task, he was the right person. It's a big book (over 600 pages) and manages to survey pretty well all of science from the Renaissance to the present day. Along the way, as far as possible, Gribbin introduces us to the characters as well as the science itself - but the sheer volume of scientists involved mean that, except for the chosen few, these bios tend to be fairly short.

It's fascinating to see how many of the discoveries we tend to ascribe to a single figure were actually the result of either collaboration or simultaneous discovery. As usual with history, it's the person with the best PR who tends to come out on top, but it's not always justified. In fact, Gribbin argues that there's much too much emphasis placed on the individual genius and the catastrophic breakthroughs in science described by historian of science Thomas Kuhn - instead, he believes, there are very few individuals whose work would not have been duplicated a little later or in a different way. This book is great for getting a picture of the vast sweep of scientific discovery, but don't expect it to be as readable through as many works of popular science - it's more a dipping in book. Not available in the US - but well worth a few extra dollars to get it from the UK.

Also available as hardback:

Reviewed by Jo Reed

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