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Science: A history 1543-2001 by John Gribbin, Allen Lane, 拢25, ISBN 0713995033 Reviewed by Jon Turney

HISTORY of science has yet to find a professional who has the narrative flair, writing skill and sheer chutzpah to deliver a single, unfolding story. While the academics focus on their period, on social context and fine-grained close-ups, getting to grips with the whole shebang has been too daunting.

So enter, undaunted, John Gribbin. Our most prolific chronicler of contemporary science has already given us a Brief History of Science for the coffee table. Now he delivers a chunky one-volume history for people who actually want to sit and read.

The result is thorough, and thoroughly conventional. Science is a relay race, starting in Renaissance Europe, and the names and dates of every baton-carrier are here. Gribbin has no interest in avoiding what historian E. P. Thompson called 鈥渢he enormous condescension of posterity鈥�. If you were not convinced that science is steadily cumulative, you would find it hard to tell the story at all, although always knowing the answers in advance does tend to remove narrative interest.

And you have to be impressed by the range of science Gribbin can deal with. The book is stronger on physical than life sciences, and says hardly anything about science since 1950, despite its subtitle. That aside, it is remarkably comprehensive.

It has many things to annoy the professionals, starting with the opening invocation of 鈥渢he Dark Ages鈥� 鈥� a red rag to the historian bull, since the period that was a bit gloomy in post-Roman Londinium also included an Age of Light in, for example, Baghdad. Maybe some of them will even be annoyed enough to have a go themselves at a sweeping, one-volume treatment. If so, they will find Gribbin a hard act to follow.