 | The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450 by David C. Lindberg
Buy new: $16.50 / Used from: $17.97 Probably the best history of science covering ancient and medieval science to 1450.
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 | The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy: Selected Readings
Buy new: $7.95 / Used from: $5.00 A short compilation of selected writings from Aristotle (384-322 BC), Copernicus (1473-1543), Bacon (1561-1626), Galileo (1564-1642), Descartes (1596-1650), Boyle (1627-1691), Huygens (1629-1695), Newton (1642-1727). 162 pages.
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 | The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought by Thomas S. Kuhn
Buy new: $18.45 / Used from: $4.74 Copernicus: February 19, 1473 May 24, 1543.
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 | On The Shoulders Of Giants by Stephen Hawking
Buy new: $15.61 / Used from: $4.40 This is not written by Stephen Hawking; it is edited by him and consists in large selections from past scientists: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Einstein.
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 | Francis Bacon: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics) by Francis Bacon
Buy new: $18.95 / Used from: $7.99 22 January 1561 9 April 1626, an advocate of the scientific revolution, and includes Utopian visions of the future such as his unfinished "The New Atlantis" (another great modernist Utopian thinker is H. G. Wells below).
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 | Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings by René Descartes
Buy new: $23.39 / Used from: $11.50 March 31, 1596 February 11, 1650.
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 | Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity by Rebecca Goldstein
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $8.43 Spinoza: November 24, 1632 February 21, 1677. Also see "Spinoza's Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine" by Willi Goetschel.
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 | Isaac Newton by James Gleick
Buy new: $11.16 / Used from: $6.27 4 January 1643 31 March 1727
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 | Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 by Jonathan I. Israel
Buy new: $38.10 / Used from: $31.68 1650-1750
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 | A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford Philosophical Texts) by David Hume
Buy new: $18.85 / Used from: $10.05 April 26, 1711 August 25, 1776. Albert Einstein wrote that he thought Hume had it right about causation.
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 | The Enlightenment: The Science of Freedom by Peter Gay
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $8.05 |
 | The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism by Peter Gay
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $9.77 |
 | The Portable Enlightenment Reader (The Viking Portable Library) (The Viking Portable Library)
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $5.00 Selections from Kant, Bacon, Newton, Voltaire, Bayle, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Descartes, Reid, Priestly, Mandeville, Bentham, Mozart, Gibbon, etc.
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 | From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals) by Charles Darwin
Buy new: $26.37 / Used from: $24.94 12 February 1809 19 April 1882
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 | Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $4.94 Carl Sagan called this book a breath of fresh air. Dennett is a philosopher and does not come out of a field of science like Sagan did, but he is really witty, lucid, and good at explaining the philosophical consequences to evolution. Dennett: born March 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts (he looks like Santa Clause!).
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 | Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life by Mark Francis
Buy new: $36.00 / Used from: $44.99 27 April 1820 8 December 1903. A Darwinian philosopher.
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 | The Natural Philosophy of James Clerk Maxwell by P. M. Harman
Buy new: $50.00 / Used from: $42.00 1831-79
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 | William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson
Buy new: $12.21 / Used from: $0.48 William James: January 11, 1842 August 26, 1910. A reaction partially against modernism in a pragmatic defense of mystics.
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 | The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $2.95 An excellent history of American thought, pragmatism, and thinkers such as William James, John Dewey, Charles Pierce, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. It covers the impact of evolution, new scientific methodologies (introduced from Europe), and many aspects of modernity.
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 | The Portable Nietzsche (Viking Portable Library) by Friedrich Nietzsche
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $4.96 October 15, 1844 August 25, 1900. There is no better modernist.
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 | The Shape of Things to Come (Penguin Classics) by H.G. Wells
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $8.00 H. G. Wells (1866-1946) speculates about a world unified government in this excellent novel, but he also draws from history such as his capitalist-socialist mixed view and very Utopian views of the future.
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 | The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell by Bertrand Russell
Buy new: $39.55 / Used from: $19.99 18 May 1872 2 February 1970.
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 | A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein by Stephen Hawking
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $6.10 Albert Einstein: March 14, 1879 April 18, 1955.
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 | Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (Great Discoveries) by Michio Kaku
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $7.80 Kaku is a lucid writer. Michio Kaku: January 24, 1947-present. Also look into Kaku's great book "Hyperspace."
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 | The Wittgenstein Reader (Blackwell Readers) by Anthony Kenny
Buy new: $32.35 / Used from: $35.56 April 26, 1889 April 29, 1951. Also see Ray Monk's biography: "Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius."
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 | The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics) by Karl Popper
Buy new: $14.93 / Used from: $11.79 Karl Popper: July 28, 1902 September 17, 1994. Also get his "Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge Classics)."
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 | The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski
Buy used from: $2.97 January 18, 1908 - August 22, 1974. Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" inspired the Cosmos TV series and book by Carl Sagan.
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 | Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings (Routledge Contemporary Readings in Philosophy)
Buy new: $33.25 / Used from: $32.00 My favorite selection is Quine's "Two Dogma's of Empiricism" since it is one of the best statements of the principle of parsimony or Occam's Razor.
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 | The Philosophy of W. V. Quine: An Expository Essay by Jr Roger F. Gibson
Buy new: $24.95 / Used from: $22.27 Quine: June 25, 1908 Akron, Ohio December 25, 2000.
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 | Briefly: Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic by David Mills Daniel
Buy new: $11.04 / Used from: $8.00 October 29, 1910 June 27, 1989
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 | The Essential Turing: Seminal Writings in Computing, Logic, Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, and Artificial Life plus The Secrets of Enigma by Alan M. Turing
Buy new: $31.50 / Used from: $10.19 Alan Turing: 23 June 1912 7 June 1954. Also see the new biography "Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker" by Christof Teuscher.
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 | The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays by Albert Camus
Buy new: $10.36 / Used from: $6.40 Camus: November 7, 1913 January 4, 1960, also see Sartre's writings for another good example of reactions to modernism. Camus' is my favorite, though: he basically wants us to get a thrill out of living in the modern world.
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 | Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $3.87 May 11, 1918 February 15, 1988.
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 | Cosmos by Carl Sagan
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $1.56 Carl Sagan: November 9, 1934 December 20, 1996
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 | The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $3.49 An excellent attempt to define science and refute pseudo science in popular culture.
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 | The Day the Universe Changed: How Galileo's Telescope Changed The Truth and Other Events in History That Dramatically Altered Our Understanding of the World (Back Bay Books) by James Burke
Buy used from: $5.96 born 22 December 1936
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 | Universe in a Nutshell/Illustrated Brief History of Time (Boxed Set) by Stephen William Hawking
Buy used from: $15.94 Stephen Hawking: born 8 January 1942-present. Also see the good introduction by J. P. McEvoy: "Introducing Stephen Hawking, 3rd Edition (Introducing)."
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 | Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $5.00 Ferris: born August 29, 1944-present. A newer history of science that echoes past histories such as Carl Sagan's "Cosmos."
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 | Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics by William Dunham
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $7.19 |
 | The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $1.78 Brian Greene: born February 9, 1963. A string theorist.
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