The author treats the history of Science since the time of the Renaissance in a refreshingly different manner. Rather than center its contents on dates, he approaches it through the persons whose breakthroughs ended up making history. Like other treatments of the subject, it is oriented around dates and is chronologically developed. Since the intent was to develop significant developments in Western science, the time span is limited to the Renaissance to around the termination of the twentieth century. Omitted therefore, are the important achievements of the Ancient Greeks, the Chinese, and the intellectual leaders of the Islamic world.

Gribben clearly points out that the progress made in science has been a function of step-by-step advances made by certain individuals. Shown herein is that when the time is appropriate, more than one person has made the next step forward in more or less the same period. What is even more important than the intelligence of the inventors themselves is the ever on-going development of technology. For example it is not surprising that the beginning of the scientific revolution occurs during the time the telescope and microscope are developed. Stressed throughout is that each genius came upon his achievements by relying upon the contributions made by their predecessors. An important realization is that if a particular invention had not been made by that specific person, scientific progress would have been delayed but only a relatively short time.

The question the author poses is: “How did Western Science get started in the first place?” His answer is “The Renaissance”. This is used as his rationale for beginning this work at that point in history. Technology came first, followed by blending of science and technology, which enable progress to really take off. The arbitrary span of time viewed as the start of the Renaissance by the author is 1453 (which started many Greek-speaking scholars to flee from the Turks to Italy). He views the end of this important era to be around 1687, which is the year that Isaac Newton published his great work “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”. By that point in time, science became the driving force of Western Civilization through its effect on technology and the way the world was viewed. In retrospect, Science is one of the greatest achievements of the human mind and ordinary clever persons made step by step progress from the work of their predecessors. And in this work, Gribben sorts out the individuals he perceives as being the major contributors to these advances.

Book One, “Out of the Dark Ages” is a three part treatment of those earlier times: “The Renaissance Men”, “The Last Mystics”, and “The First Scientists”. Included in the section are the highlights of the lives of Copernicus, Harvey, Kepler, Gilbert, and Galileo. Galileo appears as the “star” in this constellation of famous persons.

Book Two, “The Founding Fathers” main characters include Rene Descartes, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, and Edmond Halley. This is followed by Book Three, “The Enlightenment”, Book Four “The Big Picture”, and Book Five, “Modern Times”. Book Five begins with the discovery of the vacuum tube by William Crookes and closes with outer space and “Chon and humankind’s placed in the Universe – Into the unknown”. In retrospect a vast amount of scientific progress is covered in this work and the closing portions indicates there may be more to be discovered than is already known.

As revealed in the ending portion labeled “Coda: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out”, it is pointed out that, for the most part, most discoveries were made by individuals in their quests to satisfy their own curiosity about how the world works. One of the many insightful statements is that the two keys to scientific progress are the personal touch and building upon what has gone before. Chances are these will be the heart of future progress in the world of science. In the final analysis, science always has been about an ongoing search for objective truth. The pleasure of finding things out will likely be a continuing movement in continuing progress in science.

The author provides a good Bibliography which would be most helpful for those who wish to pursue other publications in this field. The Index is well developed such that readers can locate particular items by its utilization. A major strength in this book is the employment of non-scientific language in descriptions of the individuals chosen for inclusion. This makes it readable and enjoyable.