A selection of recommended books at hand above ↑ (the missing ones are all those I’ve no idea where I stuffed them, so I haven’t found them for the moment…)
General history category, overall recommendations:
Wu Guosheng: 《The Course of Science》——I’ve put my advisor’s book in the first place. Among books by domestic authors on the same subject, this one is still the best, but after all it was first published quite early, and now it does have quite a few shortcomings.
McClellan, 《A General History of Science and Technology in the World》——A rather standard general history of science, at least much better than Dampier’s, with the highlight being the sections on the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath.
Lindberg: 《The Beginnings of Western Science (2nd ed.)》——It only goes up to the end of the Middle Ages, but as far as the history of ancient science is concerned, this is the best general-history reading.
Kuhn: 《The Re-Creation of the World: How Modern Science Came into Being》——A problem-oriented, reflective history of science, taking the story up to Newton, and not very long. Because I had set my expectations too high at the beginning, I felt somewhat disappointed after reading it then, but all the same it is worth reading.
Lecture 1 What Use Is the History of Science
Schuster: 《An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science》——An introductory textbook combining the history of science and the philosophy of science; pretty good.
Chalmers: 《What Is This Thing Called Science?》——One of the best introductory books on the philosophy of science.
Kuhn: 《The Structure of Scientific Revolutions》——One of the most classic works in the history of science and the philosophy of science; it was precisely this book that brought together the two academic traditions of the (Anglo-American) history of science and the philosophy of science.
Chen Jiaying: 《Philosophy·Science·Common Sense》——An excellent introductory reading on the history of science and the philosophy of science written by a domestic scholar.
Lecture 2 The Prehistory of Science
Yuval Harari: 《Sapiens: From Animals to God》——This book seems to have been very popular lately; I’ve seen many people recommending it, so I took a look too, and it really is pretty good.
Diamond: 《Guns, Germs, and Steel》——A uniquely insightful perspective, Li Jufu; all of Diamond’s books are quite good.
《A Selected Collection of Writings by Lewis Mumford》——Mumford pointed out the direction for research in the history of technology.
Lecture 3 The Classical Greek Period
Lloyd: 《Early Greek Science》——A rather standard general history of early Greek science; it feels rather inadequately written, but it is still worth consulting.
Collingwood: 《The Idea of Nature》——A very good book on the tracing of the idea of “nature.”
Hamilton: 《The Greek Spirit》——Not directly related to the history of science. This is a classic work on the Greek spirit. I’m not very familiar with whether there are newer, better-read books on this topic?
Pierre Hadot: 《The Veil of Isis》——A rather profound inquiry into the idea of nature, which I haven’t fully worked through yet (I only skimmed it briefly).
Lecture 4 Hellenistic Science
Kuhn: 《The Copernican Revolution—Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought》——A very good book on the history of Western planetary astronomy, with a chapter specifically introducing Greek astronomy. I’ll recommend it again later.
Hoskin: 《The Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy》——A pretty good general history of astronomy.
New Satellite: 《The History of Astronomy: A History of Humanity’s Understanding of the Cosmos and Itself
Lecture 5 Roman and Arabic Science
Huff: 《Why Modern Science Was Born in the West》——A large portion of this book deals with Arabic science; not bad.
Jonathan Lyons: 《The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization》——A popular book; I feel it’s so-so, but there are really too few monographs on Arabic science, so let’s count this as one.
Lecture 6 Special Topics in the History of Chinese Science
Needham (adapted by Colin Ronan): 《A History of Chinese Science and Civilization》——An abridged version of Needham’s monumental work, and an excellent introductory reading on the history of Chinese science.
江晓原：《The True Origins of Astronomy》——A model work by a domestic scholar that breaks through Whig historiography.
Lloyd：《Modern Thought in the Ancient World》——A historical reflection on science.
Lecture Seven: The Middle Ages and Christian Science
Grant：《The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages》——The best introductory reading on the history of medieval science.
Lindberg：《The Beginnings of Western Science (2nd ed.)》——Recommended once again; the medieval part of this book is very well written.
McGrath：《An Introduction to Science and Religion》——The best introductory reading on the issue of science and religion, including—but by no means limited to—their historical relationship.
Lecture Eight: Printing and the Scientific Revolution
Eisenstein：《The Printing Press as an Agent of Change》——Discusses the relationship between the printing press and the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution; a classic in media history.
Mumford：《Technics and Civilization》——A classic in the history of technology. Though it does not quite fit this chapter.
Hu Yilin：《A History of Science and Culture》——Most of this lecture and the previous one come directly from my own book, which is relatively more comprehensive. I list it here merely to point out that, for this course, reading the lecture notes is enough; there is no need to read my book.
Lecture Nine: The Copernican Revolution
Principi：《The Scientific Revolution》——A brief but excellent popular introduction to the history of the Scientific Revolution.
Kuhn：《The Copernican Revolution》——Recommended once again.
Harries：《Infinity and Perspective》——A distinctive angle: it does not only discuss the astronomical revolution, but also focuses on perspective and its significance in intellectual history.
Lecture Ten: The Mechanical Revolution
I·Bernard Cohen：《The Birth of a New Physics》——A good book on the physical thread of the Scientific Revolution, with quality assurance from Senior Brother Futian.
Bert：《The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science》——A very early but very good book. The author approaches it from the standpoint of the history of philosophy. He believes that the traditional way of describing modern philosophy as an “epistemological turn” is incomplete; in his view, the history of philosophy cannot fail to write Newton out, and one must understand philosophy together with the rise of science history and epistemology.
Dijksterhuis：《The Mechanization of the World Picture》——A historical tracing of the eventual formation of mechanics and its worldview; a very dense work of history of science, hard going but worth consulting.
Lecture Eleven: Alchemy and the Scientific Revolution
Margaret•Osler：《Reconfiguring the World: Nature, God, and Human Understanding from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Europe》——Includes a section introducing alchemy, but the other parts are also worth reading.
Peter Marshall：《Philosopher’s Stone: The Quest for the Secrets of Alchemy》——This book and the next are both books that help “vindicate” the Philosopher’s Stone series; there are still very few serious historical readings on alchemy in China, and these two are the best.
Hans-Werner Schütt：《Searching for the Philosopher’s Stone: A Cultural History of Alchemy》——See above.
Lecture Twelve: Science in the Enlightenment
Roy Porter：《(The Cambridge History of Science) Eighteenth-Century Science》——This book is too thick, and includes many articles; it is worth consulting.
Peter Gay：《The Enlightenment》——My introduction here to the background of the Enlightenment is too abbreviated; you can look for some related historical reading to supplement it.
Lecture Thirteen: Science and the Industrial Revolution
McClellan III：《A Comprehensive History of World Science and Technology》——Recommended again; it is not as strong as Lindberg on ancient science, but it is very well written on the Industrial Revolution.
Bowler：《A History of Evolutionary Thought》——A decent introductory reading on the history before and after evolutionary theory.
Thomas：《Faraday and the Royal Institution》——Faraday was a very distinctive figure.
Lecture 14: Special Topics in the History of Mathematics (The Mathematical Revolution)
Karl B. Boyer: 《A History of Mathematics》——it is hard to find anti-Whiggish works on the history of mathematics on the market; this one is, relatively speaking, the one I found pretty good after reading it.
M. Klein: 《Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty》——for what there wasn’t time to cover in this class, you can read this book; it is an excellent introductory book for reflective engagement with the history of mathematics.
《Collected Writings on the Intellectual History of Jacob Klein》 (to be published soon in the Series on the Origins of Science)
Zhang Donglin (doctoral dissertation): “Descartes’ Transformation of the Concept of Quantity”
Lecture 15: The Twentieth-Century Revolution in Physics
Cao Tianyuan: 《A History of Quantum Physics》——the best popular science book I have seen by a domestic author at a high level, unfolding the story gently within historical settings. As a history book it is not rigorous enough, but as a popular science book it is very successful.
Isaacson: 《Einstein: His Life and Universe》——written by the author of the Steve Jobs biography, translated by Zhang Butian, this is the best Einstein biography on the market; it also includes a popular explanation of relativity.
Wu Guosheng: 《Lectures on Reflecting on Science》——once again inviting the teacher to come out and steady the field~ There is an essay inside, “Historical Retrospect and Philosophical Reflection on a Hundred Years of Science and Technology,” which can be taken as supplementary reference.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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