
Ask HN: What are your favorite books on the history of ideas and inventions? - filippp
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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fuzzfactor
"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_Encyclop...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov's_Biographical_Encyclopedia_of_Science_and_Technology)

fuzz

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didgeoridoo
Bill 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.

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tunap
Thumbs 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.

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JSeymourATL
An 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)

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alanfnoel
The Innovators by Walter Isaacson

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dharmon
I 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.

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osullivj
Dyson: Turing's Cathedral Feyerabend: Against Method

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droidist2
iWoz was really interesting

