Dr Bronowski’s maginificent thirteen-part BBC television series The Ascent of Man traced our rise – both as a species and as moulders of our own environment and future. This is the book of the programmes. It covers the history of science, but of science in the broadest terms. Invention from the flint tool to geometry, from the arch to the theory of relativity, are shown to be expressions of man’s specific ability to understand nature, to control it, not to be controlled by it.

          Dr Bronowski’s rare grasp not only of science, but also of its historical and social context, gave him great advantages as an historian of ideas. It is a book which gives us a new perspective not just on science, but on civilisation.