William Whewell — polymath Master of Trinity, and coiner of the very word ‘scientist’ — wrote in History of the Inductive Sciences the first great connected history of science: astronomy, mechanics, optics, chemistry, geology and more, each traced from Greek beginnings through its decisive ‘epochs’ of discovery.
Every history of science since stands on this one. Download the free EPUB for the whole sweep of discovery, told by the Victorian who named its practitioners.