It’s no easy feat to provide an account of the entire history of science in a single book, much less make that history a “little” one: nevertheless, an undaunted William Bynum sets out to fulfill this very task in his latest project. A Little History of Science traces the march of science throughout the centuries, starting from the discoveries of ancient China and India and ending with the technology of our digital age.

A Little History of Science is comprised of 40 bite-sized chapters, each covering a distinct topic or scientist in no more than 5-7 pages. Bynum organizes a sprawling variety of theories and historical events into a reader-friendly format, allowing the reader to pick up the book every so often to read a chapter or two, which are easily understandable on their own, and can even be read out of sequence. While Bynum does not shy away from introducing scientific vocabulary wherever it is needed, he also simplifies concepts for the casual reader, without calling for any sort of scientific background. The book works splendidly as a gift for the adult reader wishing to gain a broad overview of the history of science, or the budding teenage (or child) scientist who wants to learn about the little stories behind big concepts.

Above all, the book is perfect for those who are curious about the world we live in and can’t seem to stop asking questions about the past and the present: how successful were the alchemists of ancient Egypt, China and Persia? How were dissections of human bodies carried out in the past? What led to the discovery of the heliocentric solar system? When was the theory of the atom developed? What did the first men and women to dig up dinosaur fossils think of the bones that they discovered? How are diseases transmitted, and is this what people believed in the past? How did Albert Einstein change the way we think about the universe? Did the world really begin with a Big Bang? For the insatiably curious, A Little History of Science provides a quick, satisfying array of answers, yet is sure to prompt an even greater desire for knowledge in the reading process.

After all, as Bynum states so simply in the opening line of his book: “Science is special.” It is also vitally important, and learning about it can be fun:

“People have been asking questions about what they have seen around them for thousands of years. The answers they have come up with have changed a lot. So has science itself. Science is dynamic, building upon the ideas and discoveries which one generation passes on to the next, as well as making huge leaps forward when completely new discoveries are made. What hasn’t changed is the curiosity, imagination and intelligence of those doing science. We might know more today, but people who thought deeply about their world 3,000 years ago were just as smart as we are.”