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Ask HN: What are your favorite books on the history of ideas and inventions?
I read Dealers of Lightning some time ago and I find myself wanting more (not necessarily in the field of computing). Any recommendations?
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- alanfnoel 10y agoThe Innovators by Walter Isaacson
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- droidist2 10y agoiWoz was really interesting
- dharmon 10y agoI read The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen last year and really enjoyed it. Ostensibly its about the steam engine, but the idea referenced in the title is really patents.
- didgeoridoo 10y agoBill 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.
- tunap 10y agoThumbs 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.
- osullivj 10y agoDyson: Turing's Cathedral Feyerabend: Against Method
- fuzzfactor 10y ago"Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology is a history of science by Isaac Asimov, written as the biographies of over 1500 scientists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov's_Biographical_Encyclopedia_of_Science_and_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov's_Biographical_Encyclop... fuzz
- JSeymourATL 10y agoAn unusually good read - James Dyson's quest to reinvent, build, and then successfully market his vacuum cleaner > http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/955045.Against_the_Odds http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/955045.Against_the_Odds