Science in History is a four-volume book by scientist and historian John Desmond Bernal published in 1954. It was the first full attempt to analyse the reciprocal relations of science and society throughout history.

• Volume 1: The Emergence of Science
• Volume 2: The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions
• Volume 3: The Natural Sciences in Our Time
• Volume 4: The Social Sciences: Conclusion

Originally published in London by Watts there were 3 editions up to 1969 and it was republished by M.I.T. Press in 1971 and is still in print.

"This stupendous work . . . is a magnificent synoptic view of the rise of science and its impact on society which leaves the reader awe-struck by Professor Bernal’s encyclopaedic knowledge and historical sweep." Times Literary Supplement
It is one of the sources for the idea - considered erroneous by modern historians - that Medieval Christianity had returned to the pre-scientific notion of a Flat Earth

Flat Earth

The Flat Earth model is a belief that the Earth's shape is a plane or disk. Most ancient cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period ...

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• "In medieval times there was a return to the concept of a flat Earth and a dogmatism about the crystalline celestial spheres, here epitomized in a woodcut showing the machinery responsible for their motion discovered by an inquirer who has broken through the outer sphere of fixed stars. Sixteenth century." -- Science in History, vol. 1 of The Emergence of Science (4 vols) http://homepage.mac.com/kvmagruder/flatEarth/flatEarth.html