Ten Women Who Changed Science and the World: Marie Curie, Rita Levi-Montalicini, Chien-Shiung Wu, Virginia Apgar, and More (Trailblazers, Pioneers, and Revolutionaries)

Some of these names, you will know. If you asked one-hundred people to name a female scientist, ninety-seven of them would say Marie Curie. Rachel Carson and Lise Meitner would get the other few mentions. This is a shame because every woman featured in the pages of Ten Women Who Changed Science and the World should be a household name.

Whitlock and Evans certainly try to make that happen, detailing the incredible lives and meaningful accomplishments of these lesser-appreciated visionaries. Never shying away from the mechanisms that kept them out of the history books, these biographies highlight not only the creative struggles these women endured, but the cultural and systemic ones as well. Not only were these women innovators, but their resourcefulness and determination knew no bounds.

I confess, even as a huge science nerd, I didn’t know some of these names, and I’m grateful that I do now.

Quite honestly, books like this need to be part of a multi-volume series, because the history of science demands that more women receive their proper credit and their just due. As incredibly worthwhile as these women are, they are just the tip of the iceberg.