Best Science Books 2009: The Economist

A good selection from The Economist.

  • The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective by Robert C. Allen
  • Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity by Mike Hulme
  • Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species by Sean B. Carroll
  • The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom by Graham Farmelo
  • Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham.
  • Direct Red: A Surgeon's Story by Gabriel Weston

By the way, is anybody else noticing that the Dirac bio is shaping up to be the book of the year?

More like this

I'm halfway through Graham Farmelo's Dirac biography at the moment, and enjoying it quite a bit. Farmelo cites Dirac as one of the first physicists to evaluate theories on their mathematical beauty, rather than waiting for experiments.
There has been a fair amount of discussion of Graham Farmelo's The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom-- Peter Woit reviewed it on his blog, the
So, who are the people in yesterday's poll about theoretical physicists, and why should you know them?