The Discoverers is a fantastic book, the story of those brave men and women who brought us, step by step, to our modern world. The book is split into four sections, each fascinating in its own way: Time; The Earth and the Seas; Nature; and Society.

The first section of the book goes further back into ancient history than any other, describing the development of calendars and primitive time keeping devices in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other cultures. It culminates with one of the most important inventions in human history, the mechanical clock. The origins of this invention are unfortunately lost to us. Somewhere in Europe, sometime around the end of the 13th century, an unknown mechanical genius (probably a monk) invented the escapement, the key component of the clock. This invention, the “mother of machines”, was humanity’s first step on the journey to the modern era.

The Discoverers’ section on time goes on to describe many other innovations and advancements in clock-making, including a very interesting story about the development of an advanced astronomical water clock in China by Su Song around 1088. Unfortunately, instead of sparking a mechanical revolution in China, this clock remained restricted to only a few of the Emperor’s court astronomers, and was later dismantled after an invasion of the capital where it was housed. Incomplete plans left by Su Song prevented other Chinese artisans from rebuilding the clock tower, and eventually this knowledge was lost altogether. This story is representative of many in the book – it is only by accidents of history or culture that certain discoveries were able to occur when they did.

The Discoverers gets even better in its second section. This part of the book describes the history of geographical discovery. It starts with Ptolemy, whose Geography remained the premier work in the field for well over a thousand years. Unfortunately, for much of that time it was lost to Latin Europe after the sack of Rome and fall of the Western Roman empire. How amazing it must have been for medieval scholars receiving new texts from the East to discover that ancients who lived 1000 years or more ago had so much knowledge that had been lost!

Boorstin tells so many different interesting stories in this section. Just a few of these: the relentless step-by-step exploration of the west African coast by Prince Henry the Navigator’s sailors; the amazing travels of the young Marco Polo; the journey of Friar William of Rubruck to the court of the Great Khan; Christopher Columbus’ mastery of the winds and his discovery of the very best possible passages west to the Bahamas and back East to Europe on his very first attempt; Magellan’s resiliency through the ridiculously complex Strait now named for him; Captain Cook’s leadership and skill in exploration.

The third section of The Discoverers charts the discovery of Nature. Here the book moves to the more personal stories of individual discoverers. Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, Linnaeus, and Darwin are just a few of most recognizable personalities we see in this section. But many important discoveries were made by those whose names are no longer common knowledge, and the book goes into wonderful detail on many of these: Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Hooke’s microscopic illustrations, Vesalius’ systematic analysis of human anatomy, Harvey’s theory of blood circulation, Malpighi’s discovery of the capillaries, Comte de Buffon’s conjectures on the age of the earth, Tyson’s dissections, and many more. Boorstin tells these stories with great detail and humor, describing the discoverers’ lives, backgrounds, and motivations.

The book’s final section covers the development of writing, the book, the printing press, and libraries. As usual, Boorstin shows he knows how to tell a story. There are a few great what-ifs here. How different would the world be if the Asian languages had been more suited to movable type? What if William Caxton hadn’t introduced the printing press into England using the regional dialect of English in the works he printed? England might have spoken some version of French! What if Muslims hadn’t refused on religious grounds to use the printing press?

This section also describes the discovery of history and the past. At many times in many cultures, there was no concept of history as “events that actually happened”. For much of Europe’s Middle Ages, Christian doctrine ruled over actual history. Much of what had been known was lost. Then at the opening of the Renaissance the slow rediscovery began, with major contributions going forward from Petrarch, Valla, Biondo, Schliemann, and others.

The book ends with stories of discovery in some of the more modern sciences: economics, statistics, and physics. Adam Smith, Keynes, Quetelet, Dalton, Faraday, Maxwell, and Einstein all make appearances here.

Throughout the book, Boorstin consistently delivers information with a fantastic style and a sly sense of humor. He will occasionally dish out funny but devastating critiques of certain works. Such a work may be “of doubtful originality, little merit, and great popularity”. He is also incredibly thorough and wide reaching in his content. The one criticism I have with the book is its focus on Western discovery. While there are several sections dedicated to developments in China and the Islamic world, I would have liked to have heard more about Indian mathematicians, medieval Islamic astronomy, the discoveries of Mayan and Aztec cultures, and so on. But even with its Western focus, The Discoverers is still a fascinating and, I would say, essential book. I wish every high-schooler would read this book. As Einstein said, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” This book shines a great light on how that comprehensibility came to be.