Best Science History Books
1. 
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
by:
Jennifer Wright
4.23 avg rating β 13,612 ratings 
4. 
Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong
by:
Paul A. Offit
4.15 avg rating β 8,228 ratings 5. 
Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery
by:
Paul Craddock
3.89 avg rating β 694 ratings 
7. 
The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lostβand Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail
by:
Lina Zeldovich
4.41 avg rating β 159 ratings 8. 
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemicβand How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
by:
Steven Johnson
3.89 avg rating β 55,255 ratings 
11. 
Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution
by:
Lisa Jardine
3.77 avg rating β 321 ratings 12. 
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
by:
Carl Sagan
4.29 avg rating β 78,413 ratings 13. 
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by:
Dava Sobel
3.99 avg rating β 75,024 ratings 14. 
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World
by:
Andrea Wulf
4.32 avg rating β 28,487 ratings 15. 
The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
by:
Thomas Hager
4.09 avg rating β 5,802 ratings 
17. 
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
by:
Richard Holmes
3.97 avg rating β 9,815 ratings 17. 
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
by:
Deborah Blum
4.01 avg rating β 36,514 ratings 19. 
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
by:
Simon Singh
4.30 avg rating β 28,488 ratings 20. 
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love
by:
Dava Sobel
3.75 avg rating β 30,046 ratings 21. 
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
by:
Lydia Kang
really liked it 4.00 avg rating β 9,425 ratings 22. 
Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages
by:
Frances Gies
3.88 avg rating β 925 ratings 
26. 
The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine
by:
Janice P. Nimura
3.59 avg rating β 5,902 ratings 27. 
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
by:
Simon Winchester
3.88 avg rating β 21,501 ratings 28. 
The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World
by:
Shelley Emling
3.84 avg rating β 1,340 ratings 29. 
The Queen's Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Advisor to Queen Elizabeth I
by:
Benjamin Woolley
3.83 avg rating β 812 ratings 30. 
The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology (Softshell Books)
by:
Owsei Temkin
really liked it 4.00 avg rating β 27 ratings 30. 
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
by:
Steve Silberman
4.29 avg rating β 17,216 ratings 30. 
Close to the Sun: The Journey of a Pioneer Heart Surgeon
by:
Stuart Jamieson
4.29 avg rating β 77 ratings 
30. 
A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters
by:
Henry Gee
4.05 avg rating β 2,896 ratings 30. 
The Man Who Tasted Words: A Neurologist Explores the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses
by:
Guy Leschziner
4.04 avg rating β 771 ratings 37. 
The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies
by:
Richard Hamblyn
3.67 avg rating β 246 ratings 37. 
Deadly Outbreaks: How Medical Detectives Save Lives Threatened by Killer Pandemics, Exotic Viruses, and Drug-Resistant Parasites 3.85 avg rating β 878 ratings
37. 
Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service
by:
Mark Pendergrast
3.70 avg rating β 497 ratings 41. 
The Travelling Brain: A Journey Through Neuroscience History
by:
Joachim Birnbaum
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating β 1 rating 41. 
The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius who Discovered a New History of the Earth
by:
Alan Cutler
3.86 avg rating β 974 ratings 
41. 
41. 
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by:
John M. Barry
3.98 avg rating β 42,018 ratings 41. 
The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery
by:
Wendy Moore
4.07 avg rating β 4,149 ratings 41. 
The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire: Why Our Species Is on the Edge of Extinction
by:
Henry Gee
3.75 avg rating β 203 ratings 
49. 
The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris
by:
Andrew Robinson
3.98 avg rating β 228 ratings 49. 
Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age
by:
James Essinger
3.27 avg rating β 1,704 ratings 
54. 
The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece 3.53 avg rating β 1,420 ratings
54. 
Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America
by:
Annie Jacobsen
4.14 avg rating β 9,249 ratings 54. 
Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian And the Secrets of Metamorphosis
by:
Kim Todd
3.88 avg rating β 444 ratings 54. 
When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance
by:
Riley Black
4.02 avg rating β 529 ratings 58. 
This Machine Kills Secrets: How Wikileakers, Hacktivists, and Cipherpunks Are Freeing the World's Information
by:
Andy Greenberg
4.01 avg rating β 1,188 ratings 58. 
Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
by:
Annie Jacobsen
3.86 avg rating β 10,397 ratings 
58. 
The Genius Bat: The Secret Life of the Only Flying Mammal
by:
Yossi Yovel
4.15 avg rating β 20 ratings 62. 
The Mechanical Turk: The True Story of the Chess-playing Machine That Fooled the World
by:
Tom Standage
3.93 avg rating β 718 ratings 
65. 
The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention that Changed the World
by:
Amir D. Aczel
3.34 avg rating β 497 ratings 
69. 
How to Mellify a Corpse: and Other Human Stories of Ancient Science and Superstition
by:
Vicki LeΓ³n
3.48 avg rating β 165 ratings 69. 
The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
by:
Edward Dolnick
3.95 avg rating β 5,930 ratings 
74. 
Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
by:
Edward J. Larson
3.89 avg rating β 2,354 ratings 
76. 
Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science
by:
Richard Preston
3.75 avg rating β 5,027 ratings 78. 
Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family's Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them
by:
Gina Kolata
3.98 avg rating β 1,331 ratings 79. 
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It
by:
Gina Kolata
3.91 avg rating β 7,614 ratings 79. 
The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science
by:
Philip Ball
3.88 avg rating β 298 ratings 81. 
Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year 3.84 avg rating β 1,101 ratings
81. 
The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life 3.93 avg rating β 529 ratings
83. 
The Bonehunters' Revenge: Dinosaurs, Greed, and the Greatest Scientific Feud of the Gilded Age 3.32 avg rating β 115 ratings
85. 
The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
by:
Dava Sobel
3.59 avg rating β 3,470 ratings 
87. 
How to Fake a Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial 3.50 avg rating β 1,623 ratings
88. 
Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children 3.97 avg rating β 74 ratings
89. 
American Luthier: Carleen Hutchins, the Art and Science of the Violin
by:
Quincy Whitney
4.05 avg rating β 19 ratings