The Tears of Donald Knuth
I find that most history books on technology appear to focus on everything but the technology. For example, books on the Wright bros. show very little understanding of the technical achievement of the Wrights. They enumerate places, dates, and trivia of their personal lives. History books on locomotives contain arcana on the numbers painted on the side, production figures, schedules, and very very little on the engineering advances. Same with airplanes. Etc.