The Discoverers
Daniel J. Boorstin
770 pages
An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him. In the compendious history, Boorstin not only traces man's insatiable need to know, but also the obstacles to discovery and the illusion that knowledge can also put in our way. Covering time, the earth and the seas, nature and society, he gathers and analyzes stories of the man's profound quest to understand his world and the cosmos.
It's an excellent book about the people who discovered things we take for granted today, with a particularly wonderful chapter on the challenges of determining longitude accurately, showcasing an elegant solution to a problem that once kept us from venturing far from land.