Like Melvyn Bragg's recent bestseller On Giants' Shoulders, Rivals tells the story of science through the lives and discoveries of the great scientists. But where Bragg's 12 essays are lightweight sketches, the eight pieces in Rivals are substantial and well researched. While providing a fairly detailed and lucid explanation of the scientific innovations and theories, White is a fine storyteller with a great sense of drama. As one might expect from a veteran historian of science, the stories of Newton and Leibniz, Lavoisier and Priestley, Darwin and Wallace, Edison and Tesla, the race for the Atom Bomb, Crick and Watson, the Space Race and the feuds between Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are told with authority and verve.

The chapter "Atomic Bombs and Human Beings" begins with the aborted assassination attempt of Nobel laureate physicist Werner Heisenberg in a small seminar room at the University of Zurich in December 1944. The story of Edison and Tesla begins at the scene of the first execution-by-electric-chair of a man who remained alive after the first blast of electric current before the second literally baked him from the inside. This is a highly educational and thoroughly entertaining journey through some of the momentous episodes in the history of science. Suitable even for beginners, and a thumping good read even if you thought you knew it all already. --Larry Brown

Synopsis
Wherever there is science, there are scientists; and wherever there are scientists there is rivalry. Rivalry is a key feature of scientific endeavour. This text examines eight instances in the history of science and technology that changed the world, in all of which the stress of rivalry played a pivotal role. The driving force of rivalry takes many forms, whether between individual scientists, groups of scientists, institutions or among the international scientific community. The stories of Newton and Leibniz, Lavoisier and Priestley, Darwin and Wallace, Edison and Tesla, the race for the atom bomb, Crick and Watson, the space race, and the feuds between Bill Gates and Larry Ellison illustrate the varying forms rivalry can take.