The Ascent of Man

Bronowski's book — the companion to his BBC series — is a personal history of science and civilisation: how humanity developed tools, mathematics, language, industry, and how those developments reshaped what we are.

Bronowski writes as a mathematician who is also a humanist, which makes the book rare: it resists both the reduction of science to technique and the reduction of humanism to sentiment.

For product direction its value is perspective.

Every product works on a short time horizon and a narrow question; reading Bronowski is a reminder that what we call technology is a continuous human project older and stranger than the latest framework cycle.

A long, patient book.