In physics there is a rich literature documenting its history. And as you mentioned, it is scattered around books, periodicals and scientific journals. A very small selection for you and any people interested:

From Emilio Segre (Nobel Laureate) there is this 2 book series.Recommended. - From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves [1] - From X-rays to Quarks [2]

Then, you have Abraham Pais, all his books are highly recommended, I will include 2 here

[3] Subtle is the lord (Best Einstein Scientific Biography) [4] Inward Bound (Superb Scientific history of XX century physics)

Jagdish Mehra wrote a gargantuan history of Quantum Mechanics in six volumes. He studied and /or interviewed most of the big hitters who developed the theory. The science content is high so you need a good foundation.

[5] The Historical Development of Quantum Theory

Richard Westfall wrote the best Newton biography that I know.

[6] Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton

Finally the issue number 2 of the 72nd volume of Review of Modern Physics [7] is a gem; packed with historical reviews of the development of all fields in physics during the 20th century, written by eminent people.

Of course this is just a minuscule sample of an extraordinary bibliography. Sadly life is so short to make it justice.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486458083 [2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486457834 [3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/019853907X [4] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198519974 [5]https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Development-Quantum-Theory... [6] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521274354 [7] https://journals.aps.org/rmp/issues/71/2

Thanks for the recommendations! Found a couple of books I'd like to purchase, read the first twenty or so pages at one go, then relegate it to the pile along with the 50 others that have been replaced by new ones.

Academics really do not have significant insight into the history of their own field. The problem is really, that history makes for a nice introductory paragraph and by the time you can call yourself an academic you are very confident in your knowledge of history of the field because you read hundreds of times the introductory paragraph.

To make matters worse, the introductory paragraph was written by someone who has no training as an historian, and therefore also just paraphrases some tradition of introductory paragraphs.

As a concrete example, Newton's laws are actually not in the principia, but instead only appear a hundred years or so after his death. ( It is actually not unreasonable to still call them Newton's laws, but the argument is a lot more complicated than "Newton wrote Newton's laws.")

Oxford's Newton Project text of the book has the Newton's Laws in the 1687 version here: [http://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/NATP...]

What makes you think they were not?

I had a professor briefly that studied the history of mathematics. During lectures while he was developing out proofs he would often describe the historical context in which the proof was first developed. Galois has a particularly interesting (tragic) story.

There are a lot of interesting historical figures. Probably most people stick to the figures most familiar to them in their own field. The histories of Dijkstra and Turing come to mind... it strikes me that I don't know a lot about Knuth.

Speaking of Knuth, he is extraordinary in this regard apparently as the rigor of his expositions matches his attention to the historical details. Add to that his meticulousness for properly (and aesthetically) spelling people's names for good measure.

"What is real?" by Adam Becker. It doesn't touch much on general relativity if you are interested specifically in that, but it's a great read and gives you a bit of perspective how "modern" science works (I mean before the Internet, and back when we were actually moving forward..)

> Perhaps it's because matters can get quite political and subjective at that level.

Much more than I would have thought.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35604796-what-is-real