This is a book review of A Brief History of Black Holes: And Why Nearly Everything You Thought You Know About Them is Wrong by Becky Smethurst.
A Brief History of Black Holes: And Why Nearly Everything You Thought You Know About Them is Wrong, by Dr Becky Smethurst (Pan Books), 2023 (originally published 2022). Pp. 290, 19.7 × 13 cm. Price £10.99 (paperback, 978 1 5290 8674 4).
This is very much a book about astrophysics and the roles black holes play in it. Throughout the book, the history of the topic is well entwined with the astrophysics being discussed, an organic whole rather than a straight history of science about a topic which is still relevant or a book on astrophysics with historical footnotes. The book is well written in an entertaining style and is a good non-technical introduction to the importance of black holes in astrophysics. The book does what it sets out to do well, but shouldn't have included the few pages on cosmology at all; even if they were correct, they don't really belong in a book about the astrophysics of black holes, so I can recommend it if the last chapter is skipped.