History of Science & Knowledge

A panoramic history of rules in the Western world

A treasury of astonishing mythic marvels—and the surprising truths behind them

From the Nobel Prize–winning physicist, a personal meditation on the quest for objective reality in natural science

A sweeping germ’s-eye view of history from human origins to global pandemics

A captivating historical look at the cultural and artistic significance of shells in early modern Europe

A beautifully illustrated exploration of Edward Lear's little-known career as a natural-history artist—now in a new expanded paperback edition

A gorgeous expanded edition of Werner's Nomenclature of Colours, a landmark reference book on color and its origins in nature

A comprehensive history of the biological sciences from antiquity to the modern era

An illustrated look at the art and science of paleontology from its origins to today

Leading scholars take stock of Darwin's ideas about human evolution in the light of modern science

How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

A compelling alternative account of the history of knowledge from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

A landmark history that traces the creation, management, and sharing of information through six centuries

A gripping and groundbreaking history of how ancient cultures developed and used biological, chemical, and other unconventional weapons of war

How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities—demons—to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible

A major new history of the race between two geniuses to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Europe

A meticulously researched history on the development of American mathematics in the three decades following World War I

A look at how calculus has evolved over hundreds of years and why calculus pedagogy needs to change

A sweeping cultural history of one of the most influential mathematical books ever written

An interdisciplinary history of trigonometry from the mid-sixteenth century to the early twentieth

A spellbinding look at the philosophical and moral implications of animal dreaming

An original deep history of the internet that tells the story of the centuries-old utopian dreams behind it—and explains why they have died today

An authoritative interdisciplinary account of the historic discovery of gravitational waves

A definitive scholarly edition of the correspondence and papers of Albert Einstein

A translation of selected non-English texts included in Volume 16 is available in paperback. Since this supplementary paperback includes only select portions of Volume 16, it is not recommended for purchase without the main volume.

Every...

New perspectives on the iconic physicist's scientific and philosophical formation

From Nobel Prize–winning physicist P. J. E. Peebles, the story of cosmology from Einstein to today

On their 100th anniversary, the story of the extraordinary scientific expeditions that ushered in the era of relativity

A gripping history of the polar continent, from the great discoveries of the nineteenth century to modern scientific breakthroughs

A surprising look at the role of menopause in human history—and why we should change the ways we think about it

A history of how Chinese officials used statistics to define a new society in the early years of the People’s Republic of China

An in-depth look at the intersection of judgment and statistics in baseball

A foundational work on historical and social studies of quantification

An essential work on the origins of statistics

The fascinating untold story of digital cash and its creators—from experiments in the 1970s to the mania over Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

The untold story of how hereditary data in mental hospitals gave rise to the science of human heredity

How Cold War America came to attribute human evolutionary success to our species' unique capacity for murder

A stimulating intellectual history of Ptolemy's philosophy and his conception of a world in which mathematics reigns supreme

The classic case for why government must support science—with a new essay by physicist and former congressman Rush Holt on what democracy needs from science today

Why the social character of scientific knowledge makes it trustworthy

The definitive account of Tesla's life and work

In 1858, Charles Darwin was forty-nine years old, a gentleman scientist living quietly at Down House in the Kent countryside. He was not yet a focus of debate; his "big book on species" still lay on his desk as a manuscript. For more...

Leviathan and the Air-Pump examines the conflicts over the value and propriety of experimental methods between two major seventeenth-century thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, author of the political treatise Leviathan and vehement critic of...