The Quest for Artificial Intelligence: A History of Ideas and Achievements by Nils Nilsson Gives a great run through of the history of AI research. Understandi

The Quest for Artificial Intelligence: A History of Ideas and Achievements by Nils Nilsson Gives a great run through of the history of AI research. Understanding the approaches that have been tried before gives you a sense of why the state of the field is what it is today. It is worth bearing in mind that AI research expands far beyond computer science into psychology, philosophy, linguistics etc.