Despite being ~40 years old now, this book has held up very well, mainly because its topics are fairly general and for the most part not attempting to address cutting edge science. The optimistic chapters about how humanity is improving are possibly the most depressing, written as they were near the end of the cold war when the future looked brighter than I would say it does now. As a general introduction to scientific history, key discoveries, and key theories it's great and I would recommend. If you paid attention in high school science and especially if you've done any additional reading out of interest, there probably isn't anything new here though. So, a good and well-written (if occasionally flowery-prosed) summary of the basic facts, but probably nothing to be gained for anyone already particularly interested in science. Nice reading of the audiobook by Neil deGrasse Tyson, though.